FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY 


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THE  FRENCIPLES  OF  THE  SCIENCE  OF  MONEY, 


GEORGE   WILSON 


Chicago  : 

DONOHUE,  HENNEBERRY  &  CO. 

407-429  Dearborn  St. 


The  Optimns  Series,  Xo.  81.    Bfc.  12,  1895.    Issued  Semi-Monthly.     Subscription  Price, 
$12.00  per  year.    Entered  at  Chicago  P.  0.  as  Second-Class  Matter. 


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THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY: 


OR, 


The  author  earnestly  requests  the  reader 
to  make  the  foUowino  corrections  before  be- 
ginning  to  read  the  book  : 

!*age  38,   line  22,   strike  out  "«o^/' 

^age  45,  line  22,  for  "brought,"  read  bought. 

Page  54,   fifth  line  from  bottom,   put   quotation    marks    in 

front  of   "silver." 
Page  71,   line  7,   for   "Hiettites, "  read' HetJi if es. 
Page  99,   third  line  from  bottom,  for  "ideal, '^  read  ideafi. 
Page  111,  line  11,  instead  of  "were  geeild,"  read  loere-gild. 
Page  134,  line  15,  instead  of  "show,"  read  shows. 
Page  154,  line  11,  instead  of  "1894,"  read  1893. 
Page  243,  line  10,  between  "to"  and   "tax,"  put  the  word 

unequally. 


CHICAGO: 

DONOHUE,  HBNNEBERRY  &  CO. 

407-429  DEARBORN  ST. 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY; 

OR, 

THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  THE  SCIENCE 
OF  MONEY. 


WITH  OBSERVATIONS  ON  THE  PRESENT  SITUA- 
•     TION. 


BY 

GEORGE  I  WILSON. 


CHICAGO: 

DONOHUE,  HENNEBERRY  &  CO. 

407-429  DEARBORN  ST. 


Gl^ 


Copyrighted,  1895,   by  George  Wilson. 
All  Rights  Reserved. 


-i 


FOREWORD. 

It  is  generally  acknowledged  that  we  have  no  science 
of  money.  John  Henry  Norman,*  member  of  the  Lon- 
don Chamber  of  Commerce,  thirteen  years  in  the  Cal- 
cutta Mint,  dedicates  his  work  called  "The  World's  Ex- 
changes of  Standard  Metals,  with  Aids  to  the  Construe- . 
tion  of  the  Science  of  Money"  (London,  1892),  as  fol- 
lows: "These  pages  are  dedicated  with  profound  respect 
to  the  world's  first  man  of  science  who  in  the  future  pro- 
duces a  science  primer  of  money  such  as  will  compel  the 
world  to  accept  and  teach  it  as  truth,"  etc. 

Among  his  letters  of  approval  he  has  some  from  Prof. 
Wm.  Graham  Sumner,  of  Yale  University.  Since  he  wrote 
there  is  a  Science  of  Money  written  by  Alexander  Delmar, 
which  I  have  not  seen. 

Suppose  we  had  no  science  of  anato;^  y,  no  science  of 
pathology,  nor  of  materia  medica,  or  therapeutics;  in 
a  word,  suppose  we  had  no  science  of  medicine,  and 
instead  of  a  world  in  economic  sickness  it  were  one  man 
with  a  cancer,  or  a  tape-worm  in  his  stomach,  or  a  dis- 
order of  the  blood,  would  not  the  chances  of  learning  the 
cause  of  .his  ail  and  the  cure  for  it  be  small?  The  world 
has  never  lived  according  to  the  principles  of  the  science 
of  money,  and  has  suffered  the  consequences,  just  as  one 
who  lives  contrary  to  the  principles  of  physiology  must 
pay  the  penalty.  The  science  of  money  corresponds  to 
the  science  of  physiology.     The  historical  fore-word  to 

♦Called  Newman  by  mistake  in  my  article  in  the  Arena 
magazine,  December,  1894. 


Iv  FOREWORD. 

it  is  like  the  study  of  anatomy  preparatory  to  that  of  phys- 
iology. 

The  name  that  was  given  by  Gournay — (the  friend 
•of  Turgot,  minister  of  finance  of  Louis  XVI.,  born  1727) 
laissez  faire,  to  what  may  be  called  the  physiological  or 
natural,  as  against  what  may  be  called  the  mechanical, 
creative  or  fiat  system — ^tells  the  nature  of  the  factors. 

Just  as  the  sculptor  only  strips  off  the  marble  that  is 
around  the  statue  that  his  mind's  eye  sees  inside  the 
block  of  marble,  so  the  economist  has  only  to  strip  off 
what  hides  truth.  David  A.  Wells  and  Prof.  Sumner 
teach  laissez  faire  as  to  all  of  economics  except  as  to 
money.  In  that  they  teach  laissez  moi  faire.  Moi  was 
explained  by  Louis  XIV.,  who  said:  "L'etat  c'est  Moi. 
(The  state,  that  is.  Me.") 

Nearly  all  that  is  now  written,  the  thousands  of  "plans" 
are  mechanical  or  therapeutical.  We  need  neither  finan- 
cial doctors,  nor  financial  cobblers  or  carpenters;  we  need 
only  to  let  men  alone  to  their  natural  rights. 

The  purpose  of  what  is  called  the  science  of  money  is 
to  teach  the  history  and  nature  of  money  and  the  natural 
rights  of  man  in  its  use.  The  science  of  society  or  soci- 
ology is  a  description  of  the  acts  or  activities  of  human 
beings  with  regard  to  each  other;  what  they  have  been 
in  the  past  and  what  they  oug'ht  to  be  in  the  future.  The 
science  of  money,  or  the  description  of  human  activities 
in  the  matter  of  exchanging  property  and  labor  by  the 
use  of  the  common  medium  of  exchange,  being  a  part 
of  the  science  of  sociology,  this  fact  at  once  sets  the  bounds 
of  the  subject  and  gives  us  a  guide.  We  know  by  this 
classification  where  we  are,  and  must  "be  content  with 
our  horizons."  The  lines  of  the  science  of  sociology  are 
as  fixed  as  the  courses  of  the  stars.  We  can  only  learn 
them;  we  can  not  make  them.    The  science  of  money 


FOREWORD.  V 

being  a  department  of  the  science  of  sociology,  its  prin- 
ciples come  within  and  are  a  part  of  the  principles  of 
sociology.  The  sociologist,  like  the  physiologist,  must 
be  a  "servant  and  interpreter  of  nature."  The  rights  of 
man  are  natural,  not  the  gifts  of  kings  or  governments. 
The  rights  of  man  in  all  that  relates  to  labor  and  exchang- 
ing are  natural  and  not  in  any  respect  artificial  or  legisla- 
tor-made. Hence  no  legislation  that  crosses  the  lines 
of  natural  right  in  the  matter  of  the  use  of  money  has 
any  other  standing,  from  the  sociologist's  point  of  view, 
than  theft  has.  And  as  the  surveyor  in  running  Hues 
again  must  go  back  to  the  notes  of  the  original  survey, 
we  must  in  studying  the  science  of  money  go  back  to 
the  principles  of  human  rights,  whose  best  statement  is 
in  our  Declaration  of  Independence.  Bopp,  like  a  mod- 
ern, like  a  philosopher,  thought  that  the  name  of  the 
human  being  was  from  a  root  from  which  comes  the 
Latin  mors,  death,  and  thought  that  our  early  ancestor 
called  himself  "the  mortal."  It  takes  savages  a  long  time 
to  learn  that  death  is  not  an  accident,  but  comes  to  all. 
"Man"  is  no  doubt  from  that  root,  but  instead  of  naming 
himself  from  recognizing  his  own  mortality  he  did  so  from 
the  great  mortality  that  he  could  produce  among  his 
foes.  Old  Norse  madr,*  man,  whose  root  is  in  Sanskrit, 
is  no  doubt  akin  to  "murder."  He  called  himself  the 
killer,  the  warrior.  This  strangely  agrees  with  the  Bible 
story  that  the  first  man  born  of  woman  was  a  murderer. 
The  greatest  killer  of  men  still  gets  the  greatest  glory 
among  men.  Sociology  historically  describes  the  pred- 
atory man  of  the  past  and  lays  down  the  rules  of  action 
of  the  just  man  of  the  ^uture,  for  the  instruction!  of  the 
man  of  the  present,  who  is  a  good  deal  of  the  first  and  a 
little  of  the  latter.  Mr.  Norman's  requisite  of  a  "masterly 
*  Which  comes  to  u§  as  the  surname  Mather, 


vi  FOREWORD. 

skill  in  bullion  and  coin"  will  no  more  make  a  money 
scientist  than  will  a  masterly  skill  in  the  multiplication 
table,  which  is  equally  requisite.  The  first  question  to 
ask  every  one  who  talks  or  writes  on  the  subject  of  money 
is:  ''Do  you  acknowledge  the  truth  of  the  principles  of 
the  Declaration  of  Independence?"  "Do  you  take  them 
for  your  foundation?"  "Do  you  acknowledge  that  all 
men  are  created  equal  in  rights  and  that  their  rights  are 
inalienable?"  "Do  you  agree  with  John  Stuart  Mill  that 
either  all  persons  have  equal  rights  or  no  person  has  any 
rights?"  Those  not  already  on  this  foundation  must  get 
on  it  or  be  barred  out  of  the  discussion  among  those  who 
would  settle  the  principles  of  the  science  of  money  accord- 
ing to  the  principles  of  sociology.  Those  who  acknowledge 
and  clearly  understand  these  sociological  foundation- 
principles  must  come  to  the  same  conclusion  on  the  money 
question. 

The  contest  in  this  country  has  been  like  a  series  of 
skirmishes.  There  should  be  a  siege,  with  regular  par- 
allels and  lines  of  circumvallation,  each  step  irresistible. 
This  can  only  be  done  by  writing  the  elements  of  the 
science,  the  principles  of  the  science  of  money.  And  the 
way  to  begin  is  to  find  out  what  the  words  mean  that  we 
use,  and  thereupon  to  trace  the  evolution  of  money  the 
thing. 

Lexington,  Mo.,  November,  1895. 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY 


CHAPTER  I. 

ORIGIN  AND  MEANING  OF  THE  WORD  "MONEY"  AND 
KINDRED  WORDS.  THE  EVOLUTION  OF  MONEY 
THE  MEDIUM  OF  EXCHANGE. 

Max  Mueller,  in  the  Science  of  Language,  says  'The 
best  definition  of  a  word  is  its  history."  That  cannot 
be  bettered.  We  ought  to  try  to  hold  words  down  to  their 
meanings;  these  change  fast  enough  in  spite  of  our  efforts. 
He  says:  "Why  should  the  consciousness  of  our  acts 
be  accompanied  by  certain  definite  sounds?  *  *  * 
With  regard  to  sounds  accompanying  our  notions  we 
know  from  physiology  that  under  strong  muscular  effort 
it  is  a  relief  to  the  system  to  let  our  breath  come  out  strong- 
ly and  repeatedly,  and  by  that  process  let  our  vocal  cords 
vibrate  in  different  ways.  *  *  *  Such  sounds  can 
be  supplied,  as  it  seems  to  me,  through  one  channel  only, 
namely,  from  the  sounds  which  accompany  our  acts."  * 
*  *  To  such  sounds  he  gives  the  appropriate  name  of 
seeds  or  germs  of  words.  But  they  are  not  made  along 
with  muscular  effort  only;  the  mental  or  emotional  force 
sometimes  causes  us  to  make  the  muscular  effort  with 
the  vocal  organs  and  accessory  muscles.  To  those  who 
have  not  paid  much  attention  to  word-lore,  the  search  for 
the  germ  of  a  word  may  seem  bewildering,  but  Max 
Mueller  says:  ''With  about  one  hundred  and  twenty 
radical  concepts  and  twenty  demonstrative  elements  we 
could  build  up  a  dictionary  and  grammar  rich  enough 
to  supply  all  the  demands  of  Shakespeare."  Not  only 
has  the  science  of  money  never  been  written,  but  the 


2  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

origin  of  the  word  has  never  been  written.  If  one  were 
to  say  that  the  g-erm  of  the  word  ''money"  is  the  same  as 
of  the  word  "mumble"  it  would  perhaps  gain  him  only 
derision.  If  he  were  to  say  that  the  root  of  it  is  a  word 
meaning  ''to  think,"  he  would  have  few  believers.  So 
nearly  thoroughly  do  I  trust  in  the  ability  to  find  the  root- 
idea  in  finding  the  root-word,  so  greatly  have  I  been  im- 
pressed, by  trial,  with  what  secrets  a  word  when  followed 
up  will  yield,  that  it  seems  almost  sure  that  the  differ- 
ences of  opinion  on  the  money  question,  the  miscalled 
''battle  of  the  standards,"  would  be  quickly  settled  among 
the  intelligent  and  the  honest,  if  the  origin  and  meaning 
of  the  word  "money"  were  known  to  them. 

To  get  at  the  root  of  the  word  "money"  will  take  some 
time  and  patience,  but  it  is  worth  the  time  and  patience 
called  for.  Its  history  is  the  basis  of  this  important  sci- 
ence, as  the  thing  money  is  the  basis  of  modern  civiliza- 
tion. 

The  accepted  theory  of  the  origin  of  the  word  money 
is  that  it  has  come  to  us  from  Latin  moneta,  through 
French  monnaie,  Spanish  moneda.  Moneta  is  explained 
by  the  statement  that  when  Rome  began  coining  money 
for  herself,  no  longer  depending  on  foreign  coinage, 
especially  Greek,  that  the  mint  was  the  temple  of  Juno 
Moneta.  Moneta  is  connected  by  lexicographers  with 
monere,  to  remember,  to  admonish,  to  advise,  to  cause  to 
remember.  But  money,  the  thing,  had  a  name  in  Latin 
before  the  beginning  of  Roman  coinage  in  the  temple  of 
Juno.  In  Latin  writings  the  common  name  was  not 
moneta,  but  aes,  metal. 

How  did  it  happen  that  coining  was  done  in  Juno's 
temple  instead  of  one  dedicated  to  the  god  of  riches  or  to 
Mercury,  the  god  of  merchants  and  traders?  This  impor- 
^;it  point  has  been  overlooked.    The  smallest  details  in 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  3 

matters  of  religion  among  the  ancients  were  arranged 
with  a  purpose. 

Moneta  is  said  to  be  from  monere,  yet  the  nearest  form 
of  the  verb  to  it  is  moneto,  or  monete,  advise  thou,  or 
be  thou  advised,  advise  ye,  or  be  ye  advised.  The  form 
moneta  is  no  part  of  the  verb  as  given  in  common  gram- 
mars. In  any  case  there  seems  warrant  for  the  suspicion 
that  too  much  has  been  taken  for  granted  in  the  case  of 
the  word  moneta,  and  that  it  has  too  easily  passed  as  the 
sole  ancestor  of  our  word  "money."  The  moon-goddess, 
from  the  moon  marking  time,  presided  over  cows  and 
their  fertilit}%  and  over  women.  'The  moon  is  often  sym- 
bolized as  a  cow."  The  supposed  prototype  of  Juno,  the 
Greek  Hera,  is  "the  patron  of  all  marriage."  (Women 
are  most  adorned  then.)  On  the  coins  of  Samos,  Hera 
has  the  sun  and  the  moon  on  either  side  of  her  head,  as 
has  Diana  on  those  of  Ephesus.  The  Ephesian  Artemis, 
or  Diana,  was  a  form  of  the  moon-goddess  concerned  in 
the  productiveness  of  animals.  "Other  points  in  Hera 
point  directly  to  the  moon."  "Like  all  other  moon-god- 
desses, Hera  is  represented  as  a  cow."  In  Greek  legend 
a  close  connection  exists  between  her  and  the  cow,  and 
she  "probably  may  have  been  thought  originally  to  have 
had  the  form  of  a  cow."  The  horns  of  the  cow  and  of  the 
new  moon  represent  each  other. 

Herbert  Spencer  says,  p.  f..  Appendix  A,  Principles  of 
Sociolog}^  under  "Lotus  Worship":  "As  is  stated  in  Mr. 
Wilson's  'Abode  of  Snow,'  the  daily  and  hourly  prayer  is 
'Om  mani  padme  haun,'  which,  literally  rendered,  means 
'Oh,  God,  the  jewel  in  the  lotus.  Amen.'  The  word  mani 
here  translated  jewel,  and  meaning  more  generally  a 
precious  thing,  is  variously  applied  to  sacred  objects." 

The  definition  of  mani  in  the  Monier-Williams  San- 
skrit Dictionary  of  1872  is  "a  jewel,  gem,  precious  stone 


4  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

(especially  a  pearl,  bead  or  other  globular  ornament) ;  an 
ornament  or  amulet  in  general."  *  *  *  Mani-kara, 
a  worker  in  precious  stones,  lapidary,  jeweler.  *  *  * 
Mani-dhanus;  Jewel-bow,  rainbow.  *  *  *  Mani- 
bandha,  the  fastening  or  putting  on  of  jewels;  the  wrist 
(as  the  place  on  which  jewels  are  fastened).  Mani-band- 
hana,  the  fastening  on  of  jewels,  a  string  of  pearls,  an  orna- 
ment of  pearls;  the  part  of  a  ring  or  bracelet  where  the 
jewels  are  set;  the  wrist  or  forearm  from  the  wrist  to  the 
elbow.  *  *  *  Mani-mala,  a  string  of  pearls  or  jewels, 
a  necklace  of  precious  stones.  The  original  of  ''money" 
would  not,  however,  necessarily  be  the  single  word  mani, 
a  gem,  a  precious  stone ;  but  a  longer  word,  as  manimaya, 
consisting  of  jewels;  manda,  ornament;  mandayant,  an 
ornament.  The  plural  of  the  latter  word,  afterward  worn 
down  to  mani,  and  'with  the  d  lost,  might  become  the  gen- 
eral term  for  jewelry.  There  is  also  the  kindred  Sanskrit 
word  manda,  to  adorn  oneself;  to  dress.  There  is  then 
the  possibility  that  it  is  the  sister  word  of  the  Latin  moneta, 
and  that  Juno  Moneta  is  the  adorned  goddess,  or  woman; 
the  bejeweled;  presiding  over  bridals,  on  which  occa- 
sions women  are  most  adorned.  And  from  the  fact 
that  woman  and  adornment  can  hardly  be  thought 
of  separately  this  is  a  reasonable  explanation  in  the  idea, 
whatever  merit  or  lack  of  it  may  be  in  the  etymology. 
Sanskrit  manda- pa  is  a  shed  or  hall,  erected  on  festival 
occasions,  as  marriages,  and  adorned  with  flowers;  an 
open  temple.  Mandala,  one  meaning  is,  the  disk  of  the 
sun  or  moon;  the  halo  around  the  sun.  The  latter  is 
connected,  perhaps,  with  the  idea  of  ring  jewelry.  (Ben- 
fey  gives  mand  as  akin  to  mad,  the  latter  meaning  to 
intoxicate,  exhilarate,  rejoice  and  to  shine.)  That  mani 
comes  to  mean  jewelry  in  general  seems  to  be  shown  in 
the  word  mani-kara,  a  jeweler,  net  a  lapidary  alone  (our 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  5 

**create"  being  of  same  root  as  kara,  as  are  doubtless  also 
Scandinavian  gera  and  Scotch  gar,  to  make.  The  Latin 
word  moneta  is  referred  to  moneo,  to  admonish,  to  cause 
to  remember,  and  the  latter  to  Greek  mnaomai,  to  re- 
member. But  the  latter  is  near  to  Sanskrit  mna,  "to  fix 
in  the  memory  by  frequent  repetition,  to  remember." 
(Benfey.)  "To  study.-'  (Max  Mueller.)  Benfey  says: 
"Compare  man."  Man  in  Sanskrit  means,  by  all  authori- 
ties, "to  think." 

Greek  mnaomi,  which  is  given  as  "to  remember,"  is 
given  in  another  sense  as  "to  woo,  to  wife;  to  court,  woo." 
And  jewels  are,  among  all  people  who  have  them,  part 
of  the  means  used  by  men  in  wooing  women.  It  is  giv- 
ing remembrancers.  Then  there  is  Greek  mna;  Ionic 
mnea,  whence  Latin  mina,  a  weight,  and  also  a  sum  of 
money.  The  idea  of  weighing  was  inseparable  from  that 
of  money  as  it  was  all  weighed  in  ancient  times.  Shekel, 
a  coin,  refers  to  weighing. 

And  on  the  business  documents  dug  up  in  Babylonia, 
a  weight,  "the  maneh  of  Carchemish,"  the  city  of  the  Hit- 
tites  is  often  mentioned.  It  is  likely  that  maneh  is  of  the 
same  root  as  mani,  a  jewel.  Maneh  is  doubtless  connect- 
ed with  the  mene  mene  of  Belshazzar's  warning.* 

Perhaps  the  word  moon  and  its  Old  Norse  progenitor 
mani  are  of  the  same  root  as  Sanskrit  mani.  ^  The  San- 

♦Babylonians  and  Assyrians  are  considered  "Semites".  But 
in  the  Akkadian  remains  in  Babylonia  there  are  found  refer- 
ences to  "the  black-headed  people".  In  G^o.  Smith's  "Chaldean 
Account  of  Genesis"  we  read:  "One  of  the  most  curious  state- 
ments made  in  these  hymns  is  that  the  race  of  men  created  by 
the  deity  was  black-headed."  *  *  *  "The  sun  is  declared  to 
direct  the  men  of  the  black  heads."  The  Akkadians  are  earlier 
on  the  spot  and  were  conquered  by  the  so-called  Semitic  Baby- 
lonians. These  references  suppose  a  fair-haired  people,  who 
could  only  have  been  Aryans.  These  Aryans  were  in  Baby- 
lonia and  it  is  known  that  Aryan  Medes  and  Persians  were 
there  later.  In  fact  there  was  a  great  mingling  of  peoples  and 
blood  there. 


6  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

skrit  verb  ma,  to  measure,  akin  to  Latin  mensura,  prob- 
ably came  from  a  noun,  just  as  from  the  noun  "club"  we 
make  the  verb  *'to  club."  The  moon  was  the  measurer. 
But  it  may  have  got  its  name  from  its  looks  before  its 
office  of  measurer  drew  men's  attention.  The  remote  and 
strange  is  sometimes  named  from  the  nearer  and  better 
known,  so  it  may  have  been  named  from  the  white  fetich 
stones,  sand-polished  quartz,  or  other  "moon-stones,"  or 
amulets  of  superstition.  Compare  Revelations,  Chapter 
IL,  seventeenth  verse:  "And  I  will  give  him  a  white 
stone,  and  in  the  stone  a  new  name  written."  This  seems 
to  point  to  a  custom  of  having  a  gem  with  the  name  of  a 
deity  on  it  to  remind  him  of  his  worshiper.  It  is  a  remem- 
brancer and  a  protecting  talisman.  The  moon  did  not 
perhaps  get  its  name  of  "measurer"  from  the  verb,  but 
this  verb  meant  ma-ing,  or  moon-ing,  i.  e.,  doing  what 
the  moon  does.  If  the  moon  was  named  first  as  the  meas- 
urer and  as  the  reminder,  and  the  stones,  amulets  and 
jewels  from  it,  then  the  amulets  were  not  named  from  the 
word-root  man  until  after  men  had  outgrown  the  purely 
fetich  stage  (in  which  the  power  is  thought  to  be  in  the 
fetich  itself),  and  had  looked  for  a  source  from  which  the 
power  of  the  fetich  came  and  believed  it  to  be  in  the  sun 
and  moon  and  re-presented  in  the  fetich.  It  is  said  that 
our  first  continental  money  had  a  picture  of  a  sun  dial 
on  it.  This  may  be  thought  to  mean  "time  is  money." 
But  it  may  bef  a  preserved  or  aided  tradition  from  the  time 
when  the  connection  between  the  sun  as  a  time-marker 
and  jewels  or  money  had  not  yet  been  lost.  Or  when 
the  ring  around  the  time-keeping  moon,  or  the  yellow 
disk  of  the  sun,  was  still  connected  with  ring  money  or 
with  yellow  disks  of  gold.  And  the  above  adage  may 
have  an  origin  not  heretofore  suspected,    Ben  Franklin's 


^  I'HE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  1 

penny  had  a  sun-dial  on  it,  which  may  be  of  very  ancient 
descent,  though  the  legend  *'mind  your  own  business" 
was  modern. 

Graff's  Treasury  of  Old  High  German  Words  gives 
manili  as  lunula  (Latin,  little  moon);  ''quam  muliebres 
portant  in  pectore"  (which  women  wear  on  their  breasts). 
This  is  equivalent  to  manlin  found  in  an  eleventh-twelfth 
century  text  of  the  Bible.  Under  menni,  which 
he  gives  as  the  plural  of  Old  Norse  men,  he  gives  also 
Anglo-Saxon  menas  as  equivalent  to  monilia  (jewels) 
and  Sanskrit  mani  (gemma).  Also  Old  High  German 
menihha  equivalent  to  Latin  manica  or  armilla,  brace- 
let. Grimm's  Deutsche  Grammatik  gives  menni  as 
monilia,  which  means  jewels.  Graff  gives  mano  as  flam- 
meolum  (a  bright  yellow  or  flame-colored  veil  worn  by 
Roman  brides).  As  of  the  kin  of  our  word  money  the 
Old  Norse  word  men  is  of  special  interest.  Vigfusson  gives 
"genitive  plural  menja;  dative  menjum  (j  as  y  in  Eng- 
lish). Anglo-Saxon  mene.  In  the  Heliand,  meni.  O. 
H.  G.  has  mani-kold,  necklace  gold.  Probably  English 
marigold  is  from  it.  The  Voluspa,  a  mythical  Norse  poem, 
speaks  of  hringa  ok  men  (rings  and  necklaces).  Lyngva 
men,  *'the  necklace  of  the  bush,"  is  a  poetical  Old  Norse 
name  for  a  snake.  In  the  plural  the  word  means  jewels, 
treasures.     Both  sexes  wore  necklaces. 

In  Russian  the  letter  e  with  the  diaeresis  over  it  sounds 
as  yo.  The  farther  we  go  back  the  nearer  we  would  find 
all  these  languages  together.  So  there  may  have  been  a 
time  when  the  word  written  menne  was  spoken  m-yoney. 
This  is  near  to  money  and  to  moon.  Down  to  Shake- 
speare's time  e  was  ye;  as  Yedward,  now  Edward.  So 
men  (jewelry)  may  have  been  m-yen  at  one  time.  In 
Greek,  mannos  is  a  necklace,  a  collar. 

The  sun  was  represented  on  the  ground  by  a  ring  of 


8  I'ttE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

stones,  and  a  neck-ring  would  mean  either  sun  or  moon, 
according  as  it  was  of  gold  or  silver.  Such  a  ring  is  on  the 
neck  of  the  statue  of  the  so-called  ''Dying  Gladiator," 
Galatian  or  Gaul.  Lace,  lath  and  lattice  are  from  Old 
Norse  hlath.  In  Old  Norse  poems  hlathin  hals-menjum 
means  necklace.  But  several  wires  of  gold  twisted  to- 
gether would  be  a  necklace  in  the  sense  of  the  word 
hlath.  (The  word  hlath  ends  with  the  old  letter  edh,  a  d 
with  the  top  crossed,  dropped  out  of  our  language  since 
Anglo-Saxon  times.  It  had  the  force  of  th  in  the  word 
smooth).  The  word  men  in  the  sense  of  jewels  is  a  strong 
witness  for  the  theory  that  the  word  money  belongs  to 
this  widely-spread  family  of  Aryan  words  that  are  so  much 
alike  and  that  mean  jewels,  remembrancers,  amulets. 

We  may  suspect  that  Minos,  the  name  of  the  king  of 
Crete,  of  whom  the  fable  was  told  that  he  became  judge 
of  the  dead,  is  mna-aes,  the  remembrancer  metal,  i.  e., 
the  metal  of  which  the  amulets  of  superstition  for  making 
the  gods  remember  the  wearer,  were  made.  The  Britan- 
nica  thinks  the  name  is  the  Greek  form  of  the  original 
Manva,  "endowed  with  thinking."  Early  and  supersti- 
tious man  does  not  believe  that  thinking  is  peculiar  to 
men  and  gods.  They  endow  animals  with  thinking  pow- 
ers beyond  what  they  have. 

Max  Mueller  says  the  word  "tree"  and  the  words  from 
the  same  root  in  kindred  languages  was  made  by  our  sav- 
age ancestors  from  the  ripping  or  tearing  sound,  tr-r-r-r, 
made  by  stripping  bark  from  a  tree.  I  think  that  the 
Dutch  word  boom  (home),  that  we  have  as  boom,  got 
its  name  from  the  habit  of  our  ancestors  of  striking  the 
tree  to  learn  by  its  sound  if  it  was  hollow,  and  thus  an 
easier  job  to  hack  down  with  their  stone  axes.  Grimm 
(Deutsche  Mythologie)  says  that  among  our  fathers  who 
worshiped  trees,  a  natural  hole,  or  hollow  in  a  tree,  made 


T HLE3  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPMIf.  § 

it  more  sacred.  They  may  have  been  sounded  for  hoUow- 
ness  for  this  reason,  too,  though  the  other  reason  was 
perhaps  the  earHer  one.  If  any  one  will  listen  to  rocks 
rolling  down  a  mountain  side,  or  will  strike  two  stones 
together,  he  will  see  where  the  Sanskrit  word  ak,  mean- 
ing a  stone,  comes  from,  and  our  word  hack,  and  perhaps 
ax,  too.  But  ak  was  probably  spoken  yak ;  for  the  Gipsy 
word  yag,  fire  seems  to  show  that  Sanskrit  agni  (fire  and 
the  god  of  fire)  is  explained  by  ak  and  a  word  like  Swed- 
ish gnista,  a  spark,  and  meant  "rock-spark."  On  the  safe 
ground  where  Max  Mueller  has  lead  the  way  we  may  ven- 
ture, and  say  that  the  germ  of  man  to  think  may  well  be 
that  purring,  humming,  or  mumbling  sound  that  it  seems 
natural  for  every  one  to  make  when  puzzled  and  trying  to 
think  of  a  name  or  remember  anything.  If  the  lips  are 
parted  whilst  making  this  sound  the  letter  m  is  made,  just 
as  a  crying  babe  unintentionally  invented  the  word  m'h, 
ma,  or  mama.  Earlier  in  the  history  of  our  race  our  an- 
cestors had  larger  jaws  and  of  the  form  in  which  the  low- 
er front  teeth  set  forward  of  or  outside  of  the  upper 
ones.  (Called  in  Virginia  "gimber-jaw,"  probably  a  cor- 
ruption of  Kimbri-jaw).  In  such  mouths  the  tongue  is 
against  the  inner  surfaces  of  the  upper  incisors  instead 
of  that  of  the  lower  ones,  as  is  the  case  with  most  of  us 
now;  our  jaws  having  grown  smaller  from  eating  softer 
foods  perhaps. 

This  position  of  the  tongue  makes,  or  helps  to  make, 
or  add,'  the  letter  n  when  the  mumbling  "germ"  of  the 
word  is  made  as  above  described.  There  is  a  Sanskrit 
word  given  by  Benfey,  man,  to  sound,  to  murmur;  and 
from  it  manita,  a  murmuring  sound.  These  probably  of 
the  same  root  as  the  word  man,  to  think,  confirm  the 
theory  that  the  germ  of  the  word  meaning  to  think  is  the 
murmuring,  mumbling  sound  that  we  make  when  trying 


10  THfi  E^lNANCUL  PHILOSOPHY. 

to  recollect.  Our  ancestors  in  very  ancient  times  might 
have  expressed  the  idea  of  thinking  and  remembering  by 
repeating  the  germ  of  the  word,  which  is  equivalent  to 
a  word  in  the  agglutinative  form:  mn-mn-mn,  or  mn,  mn, 
mn.  Jewels  of  gold  like  the  sun-god,  or  of  silver  like  the 
moon-god,  worn  to  make  the  god  remember  the  wearer 
would  come  to  be  connected  with  the  sound  mn-mn-mn- 
mn.  The  moon,  the  measurer,  by  whose  changes  savages 
mark  dates  (so  many  moons  as  our  Indians  say),  is  thus 
a  fixer  of  dates  to  be  remembered,  to  think  of. 

The  Romans  were  struck  with  the  custom,  among  our 
Northern  fathers,  of  the  husband  paying  for  the  wife  in- 
stead of  the  wife  bringing  a  dowry.  Marriage  was  not 
regular  and  the  children  not  legitimate,  as  the  Icelandic 
sagas  and  the  ancient  laws  show,  unless  the  wife  was 
bought.  Marriage  was  brud-kaup,  or  bride-buying.  But 
the  bride  herself  and  not  the  parents  got  the  price.  The 
name  of  this  gift  was  in  Icelandic,  mundr,  the  letter  r 
being  the  soft  r  of  the  descendants  of  the  Norsemen  in 
our  Southern  States.  What  gifts  would  a  man  be  most 
likely  to  give  to  tempt  the  woman  whom  he  wanted  as  a 
wife?  It  has  ever  been  the  habit  to  appeal  to  her  sense  of 
the  beautiful,  as  in  the  case  of  Marguerite  and  Faust. 
Jewelry  would  be  the  gift,  or  fine  stuffs  for  adorning  her- 
self; and  the  likeness  between  Old  Norse  mundr  and 
Sanskrit  mandh,  to  adorn  oneself,  is  too  great,  both  in 
sound  and  idea,  to  be  accidental.  And  that  Sanskrit  mandh 
is  akin  to  mani,  a  jewel,  cannot  be  doubted.  We  are  too 
modest  in  giving  credit  for  everything  to  the  Romans 
and  in  claiming  too  little  for  our  Northern  ancestors;  and 
by  a  better  known  literature  the  Romans  have  the  vast 
advantage  in  claiming  everything  that  is  in  doubt.  Swed- 
ish mynta  Ts  a  mint,  and  mynt  is  coin.    In  new  Icelandic 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  11 

the  picture  of  a  person,  as  in  a  newspaper,  is  mynd.  Mynd 
in  Old  Norse  is  shape,  form,  figure,  image.  Cleasby  and 
Vigfusson  guess  it  to  be  from  mund,  one  meaning  of 
which  is  to  measure.  Weighing  is  one  kind  of  measuring. 
Minted  metal  may  have  originally  meant  metal 
with  images  on  it,  i.  e.,  coins;  and  so  earned  by  our 
ancestors  guld-mynd  when  they  robbed  the  peoples  south 
of  them. who  had  coins,  or  got  coins  in  trade;  in  this  way 
distinguishing  them  from  their  own  native  ring-money. 
It  is  not  clear  how  the  Scandinavians  would  get  the  word 
mynt  from  the  south,  as  no  one  used  it  there  as  the 
synonym  of  our  word  "money." 

I  have  been  seriously  tempted  to  think  that  the  original 
of  our  word  "coin"  is  not  solely  cuneus,  meaning  a  wedge, 
because  the  die  was  on  the  end  of  a  wedge-shaped  piece 
of  hard  metal.  I  am  inclined  to  suspect  that  the  Goths, 
or  Northmen,  among  whom  such  words  as  Kona,  quino 
(Swedish  quinna,  English  queen),  meant  "woman,"  gave 
that  name  to  coins  with  goddesses  on  them  that  they  got 
from  the  south.  Then  when  the  two  words  met  they  co- 
alesced. 

The  strength  of  the  Northern  blood  in  us  is  shown  in 
the  fact  that  although  we  officially  name  a  token  coin 
"cent,"  we  as  often  call  it  "penny."  This  is  Old  Norse  pen- 
ningr,  Danish  penge,  Icelandic  penningar,  Swedish  pen- 
gar,  German  pfennig.  Cleasby  and  Vigfusson  say  in  their 
great  Icelandic  Dictionary  that  it  is  from  Latin  pecunia, 
and  is  probably  one  of  the  earliest  borrowed  Greek-Latin 
words  in  Scandinavia.  It  is  hard  to  believe  that  they  had 
not  this  word  till  they  got  it  from  Romans.  It  is  based 
on  a  fallacious  limitation  of  the  meaning  of  pecunia  to 
money,  whereas  it  meant  wealth. 

Our  Northern  fathers  wore  rings  of  gold  and  silver  as 


12  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

ornaments  and  amulets.  Batigr,*  bogen,  or  bow;  rings 
made  by  bending  or  bowing  the  metal  that  had  been  beat- 
en into  rods.  The  word  *'bit"  still  used  in  the  South, 
West  and  on  the  Pacific  Coast,  possibly  comes  from  a 
bit  of  metal  cut  off  the  end  of  a  spiral  ring.  In  Jefferson's 
plan  for  a  coinage  system  he  had  "bitts,"  of  which  ten 
made  a  dollar.  It  has  been  suggested  that  the  name  dol- 
lar is  not  from  thai,  the  valley  in  Bohemia  where  the  Count 
Von  Schlick  coined  silver, /from  which  that  name  is  said  to 
come ;  but  from  tailler,  to  cut,  and  meant  a  piece  of  silver 
cut  off  from  a  large  ring,  and  akin  to  German  Theil,  a  part ; 
Deil,  Danish,  the  same;  del,  Swedish;  English,  deal. 
Deilir  means  in  Old  Norse,  divisor  (arithmetical).  The 
great  gold  ring  that  hung  at  the  temple  door  among  the 
Northmen,  that  men  took  hold  of  when  swearing  their 
most  solemn  oaths,  shows  a  superstition  in  connection 
with  the  ring;  and  it  is  significant  that  Bogn  means  God 
in  Slavonic.  There  is  a  probable  connection  in  the  ref- 
erence to  the  rainbow  of  the  flood  in  Genesis,  a  perfect 
rainbow  being  a  ring. 

In  one  of  the  rock-carvings  of  the  Sassanian  dynasty 
in  Asia,  two  men  sit  on  horses,  and  one  reaches  a  ring  to 
the  other,  who  takes  hold  of  it.  It  is  probably  the  oath  of 
fealty  to  a  suzerain  or  king,  sworn  on  the  ring  (as  some 
moderns  swear  on  the  Bible),  and  as  the  Northmen  swore. 
Grimm  (Deutsche  Mythologie)  calls  these  rings  arm- 
spangen,  as  some  were  worn  on  their  arms.  The  root  of 
the  word  spangen  branches  off  in  old  Icelandic,  making 
the  meaning  "spangle";  so  they  were  arm-spanners  and 
arm-sparklers.  The  word  loses  its  first  letter,  s,  and  makes 
in  Old  Icelandic  Pengr,  money,  which  is  pengar  in  Swed- 

*This  is  neither  hard  g  nor  hard  r.  The  r  is  the  soft  r  of  our 
Southern  people  and  the  g  is  nearly  y.  The  Boii  of  Roman 
writers  is  Bog-ingi  or  ini  (as  in  Gothini)  worn  down.  Ini  or 
ingi  means  men 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  13 

ish,  pfennig  in  German,  and  penny  in  English.  (A  is 
open  or  broad  before  one  consonant  and  closed  or  flat  be- 
fore two  in  Swedish.  This  is  probably  an  old  and  univer- 
sal Scandinavian  habit.  A  in  spangen  would  thus  sound 
as  in  spangle,  not  as  in  spark,  as  Grimm  and  the  High 
German  would  give  it).  It  is  well  known  that  the  Celts 
had  ring-money.  Proof  of  this  is  found  in  our  word  buy, 
which  the  Century  Dictionary  rightly  gets  from  Gothic 
bugjan  (spoken  probably  about  as  if  we  add  en  to  our  word 
bay,  an  inlet).  But  Whitney  seems  not  to  have  seen  that 
bugjan  (which  means  to  bow  or  bend,  as  the  arm-rings 
were  made  by  bowing  or  bending  the  gold  or  silver  rods 
or  straps  into  which  the  metal  was  first  beaten),  to  buy, 
meant  at  first  "to  give  rings  for,"  evidently  in  contradis- 
tinction to  bartering  one  commodity  directly  for  another 
commodity,  as  skins  for  weapons.  The  Russian  word  for 
"a,  rich  man"  seems  to  be  radically  the  same  word;  that 
is,  one  who  has  many  rings.  (Bogatu,  spoken  bahati). 
French  bague  is  ring. 

In  what  Lenormant  calls  Akkadian,  "an"  means  a  god. 
Anu  was  a  god  over  much  of  Asia ;  the  word  is  found  in 
Anu-baal,  or  Hannibal.  Before  knowing  that  Lenormant 
had  found  an  h  or  aspirate  before  all  the  vowels  in  Akka- 
dian, I  had  seen  that  all  of  our  vowels  must  have  once 
been  diphthongal ;  that  is,  each  vowel  had  an  i-sound  or 
y-sound  before  it.  Eastern  Virginians  (who  are  really 
Norsemen)  keep  to  this  ancient  form  of  speaking.  Thus 
car,  the  vehicle,  and  Carr,  the  name,  are  cyar  and  Cyan*. 
In  Russian  e  is  as  ye  in  yet.  In  the  Norse  sagas  Edward 
and  Edmund  and  Edgar  are  Yatward,  Yatmund  and  Yat- 
gar;  and  in  Shakespeare,  Edward  is  sometimes  called 
Yedward.  When  the  English  first  came  to  America  the 
sound  was  probably  heard  in  "English"  as  YengHsh, 
which  gave  rise  to  the  word  Yankees  when  the  Indians 


14  THB3  li^INANClAL  PHILCSOPHY. 

tried  to  speak  the  word  as  the  whites  then  spoke  it.  In 
Virginia  and  in  the  north  of  Ireland,  settled  by  Scandi- 
navians, we  hear  ii  or  yi  as  gyirl  (girl).  O  in  Icelandic 
is  io,  or  jo,  in  snjo,  snow.  Our  Southern  people  say 
diuty,  duty;  called  dooty  in  the  North.  An,  a  god,  was 
therefore  ian  or  yan.  But  to  the  dark  aborigines  of  the 
alluvial  lands  of  the  lower  Tigris  and  Euphrates,  the  "peo- 
ple of  the  black  heads,"  the  men  who  brought  down  from 
the  mountains  the  art  of  working  metals,  and  other  arts, 
were  gods,  and  if  Slavs,  "fair  gods." 

Anses  is  one  of  the  forms  of  the  name  of  the  god- 
ancestors  of  the  Norsemen  in  their  sagas.  It  is  likely  that 
the  set  of  names  John,  Johan,  Ivan,  Jensen,  Jones,  in 
which  the  J  ought  to  sound  as  Y,  are  from  (i)  An,  and 
mean  "god-descended."  So  the  Latin  annulus,  a  ring, 
French  anneau,  goes  back  to  the  meaning  of  "a  god," 
just  as  the  idea  of  ring  in  bugjan  to  buy  is  near  to  Bog, 
God.  V 

Furthermore  (and  this  was  the  most  important),  gold 
is  the  color  of  the  sun*  and  silver  of  the  moon,  both  of 
which  were  gods  among  our  Aryan  fathers,  and  other 
peoples.  When  one  was  protected  by  rings  of  gold,  and 
also  of  silver,  he  could  believe  that  assurance  in  the  Bible 
(which  has  perhaps  this  reference):  "The  sun  shall  not 
smite  thee  by  day  nor  the  moon  by  night."     - 

It  has  been  found  out  that  these  rings  are  all  multiples 
of  some  common  unit  of  weight,  though  themselves  of 

*The  science  of  esthetics  is  unsatisfactory  in  not  telling  why 
the  things  that  are  beautiful  to  us  are  beautiful.  The  comfort- 
ableness that  is  connected  with  the  idea  of  the  sun  and  fire 
and  the  red  sky,  makes  us  think  tnem  beautiful.  Krasni  in 
Russian  means  "red";  but  when  one  asks  a  Russian  how  he  is, 
he  sometimes  answers  shortly  "Krasni",  when  very  well.  Cras, 
I:a,tin  for  "to-morrow"  is  literally,  then,  "dawn"  or  "the  red". 
Pro-cras-teneo,  I  hold  for  to-morrow,  I  procrastinate,  I  wait 
for  another  dawn. 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  15 

different  weight.  They  were  to  each  other  just  as  a  series 
of  coins  all  based  on  a  common  unit.  In  noting  this  under 
the  title  Numismatics,  the  Britannica  says:  "These  Celtic 
rings  may  have  been  both  ornaments  and  substitutes  for 
money."  The  writer  failed  to  see  that  they  were  money, 
from  the  inveterate  error  that  coins  or  money  are  only 
something  issued  "by  authority."  Confirmation  of  this 
theory  about  the  word  bugjan  is  found  in  the  ancient  in- 
scriptions of  the  Aryan  kings  of  Persia,  in  which  the  word 
meaning  "tribute"  is  bajim,  and  is  probably  a  term  that 
once  meant  money  in  the  form  of  rings.  On  Egyptian 
monuments  there  are  pictures  of  men  weighing  ring- 
money.    (Enc.  Br.).* 

According  to  Lenormant  we  may  suppose  that  among 
the  Akkadians  of  Mesopotamia,  and  generally  in  Baby- 
lonia, all  sickness  was  believed  to  be  caused  by  demons 
or  evil  spirits  getting  into  the  body.  We  are  familiar  with 
this  idea  from  the  New  Testament,,  "casting  out  devils." 
In  what  Lenormant  calls  the  Akkadian  language  they 
were  called  gigim  (im  being  only  the  plural  ending).  In 
Assyrian  they  are  called  ekim.  Here  is. again  the  plural 
ending — im.  The  letter  e  in  the  Assyrian  word  is  no  doubt 
like  the  Russian  e,  that  is,  ye,  as  in  our  word  "yet."    The 

♦As  to  Celtic  ring-money  what  does  Celt  mean?  Certainly 
not  hjelt,  or  held,  hero,  as  Grimm  thought  likely;  for  heroes 
were  too  common  and  a  nation  would  hardly  so  name  itself  or 
another  nation.  It  is  likely  that  we  have  the  same  name  in 
the  Russian  word  Xoltu  (spoken  about  solti,  with  the  s  sounded 
as  in  our  word  pleasure)  and  meaning  "yellow".  It  meant  the 
bright  colored  hair  no  doubt.  It  is  likely  that  Kelt  is  another 
word,  from  Icelandic  goltr,  a  boar,  Swedish  gaiter.  It  meant 
doubtless  the  bronze  image  of  a  boar  worn  on  the  helmet  as  by 
the  Franks.  Their  sacred  boars  were  red,  so  that  the  two  words 
may  be  from  the  same  root.  Word-lore  thus  forces  us  to  give 
up  the  idea,  supported  by  the  great  authority  of  Broca,  that  the 
"true  Celts"  are  dark.  Probably  the  whole  white  race  was 
originally  blonde-haired  or  yellow-haired  and  were  called  Celts. 
The  dark  "Celts"  of'  Ireland  and  Kymry  of  Wales  are  only  Celts 
^s  the  Indians  or  mixed  races  of  Mexico  are  now  "Spaniards". 


16  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

first  g  in  the  other  word  is  no  doubt  like  y  and  the  second 
like  k,  for  the  Assyrian  worcj  is  only  an  adoption  of  the 
Akkadian  word.  This  word  I  connect  with  Swedish 
sjuk  (spoken  nearly  as  "shook"),  and  our  word  "sick." 
Sickness  was  originally  possession  by  demons  among  our 
fathers,  as  still  among  all  savages.  To  keep  these  demons 
out  they  wore  rings  at  the  ears  and  hung  them  down  on 
the  forehead  over  the  eyes,  and  this  is  the  reason  for  the 
nose-jewel. 

In  primitive  ways  of  living,  people  would  get  insects 
in  their  ears  and  think  them  demons,  and  if  they  saw 
the  insects  they  would  think  a  demon  had  taken  that  form. 
The  screens  of  grass  and  leather  strings  and  breech-clouts, 
were  more  with  reference  to  keeping  demons  from 
getting  into  the  body  than  from  shame.  The  jewels  or 
rings  on  the  ankles  would  be  more  distant  guards.  The 
ring  around  the  neck  guarded  the  approach  to  the  mouth 
from  below.  On  the  theory  of  Gesenius  that  the  Meso- 
potamian  civilization  is  of  Slavic  origin  it  is  likely  that 
the  metal-working  Aryans  from  the  north  who  overlaid 
the  native  stock  of  "people  of  the  black  heads,"  found  the 
latter  more  superstitious  than  themselves,  and  drove  a 
great  trade  with  them  in  talismanic  jewels,  rings  and 
stones,  to  wear  for  protection  against  the  gigim  or  demons 
that  made  sickness. 

When  medicine  came  to  be  used  it  was  honey.  The 
word  is  probably  from  Sanskrit  medhu,  one  of  the  other 
cases  being  medhuni.  The  h  changes  to  s,  thus  making 
medsuni.  This  being  an  Aryan  word,  it  strengthens  the 
theory  that  the  word  gig,  the  original  of  "sick,"  is  also 
Aryan.  The  oldest  medical  lore  of  Egypt,  which  came 
no  doubt  from  Babylonia,  has  scarcely  any  materia  med- 
ica  except  honey,  which  tells  why  the  bee  is  so  often  sculp- 
tured   on    Egyptian    monuments.      Honey's    purgative 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  17 

quality  and  power  of  preserving  fruit  from  decay  (and 
even  human  bodies,  Alexander  the  Great  being  preserved 
in  a  metal  coffin  full  of  honey  when  he  died  at  Babylon) 
made  its  reputation  as  the  great  medicine. 

Going  from  the  honey  back  to  the  bee  that 
collects  it  men  no  doubt  got  the  idea  of  the  medical 
qualities  being  in  the  plants,  and  thus  was  the  science  of 
materia  medica  and  therapeutics  taught  us  by  the  bee,  the 
antagonist  of  the  gigim  or  evil  spirits;  and  thus  did  the  bee 
sap  the  foundation  of  the  business  of  making  jewelry*  as 
amulets  of  superstition,  as  charms  against  the  gigim. 

In  the  bangle,  as  it  is  called,  there  is  a  blending  of  the 
arm-ring  and  coins  or  disks,  that  go  back  to  ancient 
superstitions  for  the  origin. 

Thus  the  theory  of  the  origin  of  money,  the  word,  from 
Sanskrit,  is  strengthened  by  the  facts  yielded  by  Northern 
sources  that  what  was  at  first  only  an  ornament  and  an 

*  The  word  "jewelry"  has  no  direct  connection  with  the 
word  "Jew."  The  original  word  is  a  sound  nearly  like  our 
word  "you,"  and  relates  to  the  sun  as  a  god.  The  greeting 
which  our  Northern  fathers  gave  to  the  sun  on  the  21st  of 
December  was  with  this  word,  no  doubt.  The  Gothic  word 
golein,  spoken  about  as  youleen,  in  the  Gothic  testament  of 
A.  D.  360,  and  meaning  a  greeting,  is  kindred;  also  goljan, 
spoken  yulyan.  Yule,  our  old  name  for  Christmas,  is  of  the  lot. 
In  Swedish,  spelled  jol,  it  sounds  the  same.  Grimm  thought 
jol  was  from  hjol,  which  sounds  the  same,  and  means  a  wheel; 
but  man  named  the  wheel  from  the  sun  more  likely  than  the 
sun  from  the  wheel.  Gesenius  gave  the  powerful  weight  of  his 
opinion  to  the  theory  that  Babylonian  civilization  is  of  Slavic 
origin.  The  Russian  language  strengthens  this.  Babylon  was 
Bab  El,  the  gate  of  El,  and  El  was  her  greatest  god.  But  we 
do  not  know  how  the  word  El  was  spoken.  The  second  letter 
in  the  word  "Peter"  in  Russian  has  two  dots  over  it  and  sounds 
as  yo;  Pyoter  Veliki,  Peter  the  Great.  Suppose  the  E  in  El 
to  have  this  sound  and  we  have  Yol ;  and  thus  the  El  of  Bab  El 
and  the  yule  of  the  North  are  the  same  sound  and  the  same 
thing:  the  sun.  The  sun  fecundates  the  earth,  and  Bab  El, 
the  gate  of  El,  was  the  gate  through  which  the  fecundator 
entered.  Every  gate  was  an  arch.  The  arch  was  the  symbol 
pf  femininity.    (Fornicate  is  from  Latin  fornix,  an  arch.)    The 


18  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

amulet  of  superstition  grew  to  be  the  medium  of  exchange. 
Bonamy  Price  said  that  *'it  is  clear  that  no  commodity 
whose  value  is  sentimental  could  be  selected  as  money.'' 
The  opposite  is  the  truth.  The  reasons  that  made  these 
metals  the  medium  of  exchange  are  sentimental,  yet  noth- 
ing was  more  practical  to  the  wearers  of  them  than  to 
keep  the  gods  in  good  humor;  and  it  is  only 
far  down  in  modern  times  that  man's  inventive- 
ness finds  purely  utilitarian  use  for  them  and  re- 
inforces the  esthetic  and  superstitious  demand  with  the 
purely  utilitarian  demand.  And  to-day  the  purely  utili- 
tarian demands  would  not  alone  keep  these  metals  in  their 
place  as  the  medium  of  exchange.  Take  away  the 
esthetic  and  come  to  the  purely  utilitarian  in  all  that  man 
makes  and  uses  and  figure  to  yourself  how  much  of  the 
work  in  the  world  would  cease.  As  Mr.  Shandy  said: 
"Even  a  scoundrel  cannon  they  will  put  an  ornament 

arch  was  first  used  in  architecture  in  Babylon.  The  fructify- 
ing influences  of  El,  the  sun-god,  were  courted  by  symbols  of 
the  feminine  gates  which  he  must  enter  if  life  was  to  continue. 
This  sound  of  e,  as  in  Russian,  goes  to  show  that  the  Danish 
Jensen  comes  from  a  time  when  e  in  it  sounded  as  o,  the 
languages  then  being  nearer  akin  than  now.  Owen  Morgan 
in  the  "Light  of  Britannia,"  identifies  the  name  of  the  Christmas 
service  in  the  Isle  of  Man  with  the  salutation,  Oh,  Haul;  Oh, 
Sun.  The  Welsh  word  haul  is  probably  a  form  of  the  word 
hjol,  jol,  and  yule.  The  21st  day  of  December  was  "Greet- 
ing Day;"  the  day  on  which  the  people  greeted  the  sun  for 
coming  back,  and  greeted  each  other  in  joy  at  the  event.  Jubil- 
are,  jubilee,  etc.,  seem  to  connect  yule  and  baal;  the  latter 
word  akin  perhaps  to  Russian  beli,  white;  that  is,  bright.  lu  or 
Hu  is  a  name  of  the  sun  (u  in  Welsh  as  in  French.)  Jubilare 
would  be  lu  beli,  O  Bright  Sun! 

In  the  matter  of  the  seven  tables  of  seven  different  materials 
found  in  the  foundation  of  the  palace  of  Sargon  at  Khorsabad, 
Hilprecht,  of  the  Pennsylvania  university,  in  his  Assyriaca 
(p.  80),  gives  Hurasu  as  gold  (the  h  we  may  say  is  harsh  and 
rasping,  perhaps  like  Dutch  k.)  Its  nearness  to  Greek  krusos, 
gold,  is  seen  at  once.  The  darker  aborigines  of  Mesopotamia, 
"of  the  black  heads,"  when  conquered  by  the  whites  from  the 
North   would    naturally   take    to    their   ring-symbols    of   the 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  19 

upon  its  breech."  Early  man  lived  in  superstition  as 
fishes  live  in  water,  and  so  the  amulets  and  jewelry,  from 
their  universal  desirability  by  men,  became  the  medium 
of  exchange,  as  Adam  Smith's  definition  runs:  that  for 
which  everything  is  readily  given  in  exchange.  Later  on 
the  portion  used  as  the  common  medium  of  exchange  is 
differentiated  from  the  rest  and  becomes  coined  money 
proper.  However  it  may  have  been  in  the  Orient  and 
among  the  Southern  Aryans  the  three  stages  among  our 
Northern  fathers  are:  first,  jewelry-money;  next,  private 
coinage;  then  the  duty  of  coining  put  upon  the  state  for 
general  convenience  or  usurped  by  the  king.  The  place 
that  these  metals  had  won  in  the  struggle,  by  their  fitness, 
is  at  last  recognized,  acknowledged  and  declared  by 
formal  enactment. 

Thus  we  learn irom  this  source  that  money  of  gold  and 
silver,  the  medium  of  exchange,  developed  out  of  jewelry, 
fetiches,  amulets  of  superstition  and  ornaments.     Much 

Northern  god.  Conquest  proved  the  gods  of  the  conquerors 
stronger  than  the  gods  of  the  conquered.  From  the  above 
word  from  Hilprecht  it  is  likely  that  Khorassan  was  akin  and 
meant  "Land  of  the  Sun,"  or  "Land  of  Gold,"  or  both;  for  gold 
and  the  sun  were  kindred  in  the  minds  of  the  ancients.  Khors- 
abad  belongs  with  it  too.  perhaps,  the  City  of  the  Sun  and  the 
Golden  City.  Thus  jewelry  is  radically  "sun-amulets."  The 
fact  that  the  male  mammal  has  the  reproductive  apparatus  in 
three  principal  parts  is  the  reason  given  by  the  specialists  in 
ancient  sex-worship  why  the  number  three  was  the  emblem 
of  the  male  principle  in  the  universe  and  the  male  in  the  con- 
crete. I  think  that  we  have  here  the  origin  of  the  three  golden 
balls  of  the  pawnbroker.  By  this  sign  a  Babylonian  doing 
business  in  Jerusalem  would  mean:  "A  heathen  lives  here 
who  is  not  kept  from  lending  money  on  interest  by  the  Jewish 
law." 

Some  of  the  English  Mormons  in  Utah  called  gold  "goold." 
This  is  the  same  sound  of  o  as  in  Swedish  jol.  In  Danish  the  d 
at  the  end  is  not  heard:  as  Mand,  man.  (This  is  still  common, 
among  our  Southern  people,  who  say  han'le,  bun'le;  handle, 
bundle;  and  Mexicans  who  got  it  from  Goths  through  Span- 
iards say  Raya'o  for  Rayado;  Colo  row  for  Colorado.)  The  g  in 
Skandinavian  is  often  as  y;  gera,  spol^en  yera.    Thus  by  put- 


20  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

of  the  jewelry  worn  now  serves  as  amulets.  It  may  be 
thong'ht  superfluous  to  make  this  long  quest  for  the  origin 
of  the  word  money  when  Norman  bases  his  arguments 
on  the  statement  that  gold  and  silver  are  "only  substances." 
The  use  of  this  (and  the  alluring  attractiveness  in  it,  it 
must  be  confessed)  is  that  the  one  word  alone  and  unaided 
tells  the  nature  and  history  of  money,  and  man's  rights 
in  regard  to  it. 

After  finding  out  and  working  out  for  myself,  from 
studying  the  words  by  Vigfusson,  and  by  the  Gothic 
gospels  of  Ulfila  of  the  fourth  century  and  the  ancient 
Persian  inscriptions,  and  by  modern  Russian  and  old 
Slavonic  the  fact  that  *'buy"  means  radically  "to  give 
rings  for"  I  found  that  from  some  of  the  same  sources 
and  from  Anglo-Saxon,  Max  Mueller  had  already  worked 
out  the  same  thing.  In-  "Biographies  of  Words"  (1888) 
p.  77-8,  he  says: 

"My  last  etymology  will  seem  bolder  still.  To  buy, 
/ 
ting  this  all  together  we  see  that  "gold,"  with  a  soft  g,  and  0 
like  00,  and  the  d  dropped,  is  the  same  word  as  jol  or  yule, 
and  we  saw  that  jol  or  yul  is  the  sun.  Lefevre,  the  great 
French  philologist,  thinks  language  originated  in  the  "simplest 
animal  cry."  This  name  for  the  sun  perhaps  came  from  the 
cry  "hee-ew,"  or  "hee-you,"  run  together.  The  sun  then  was 
the  yul-ed,  goold  or  gold;  the  "Greeted  one."  In  the  Gothic 
testament  of  the  fourth  century,  where  it  is  said  that  Mary 
saluted  Elizabeth  (then  pregnant  with  John  the  Baptist),  the 
word  is  golida;  sounded,  no  doubt,  yuleeda.  Golida  Aileisa- 
baith,  "she  saluted  Elizabeth,"  if  reversed  makes  Aileisabaith 
golida,  Elizabeth  (the)  saluted  one,  just  as  the  sun  was  yuled 
or  golida,  saluted. 

In  old  Norse  gjald,  plural  gjold,  is  payment,  money,  also 
retribution.  Geld,  in  German,  is  money.  Icelandic  gildi  is 
value,  worth,  price.  In  the  Gothic  of  the  fourth  century  in 
Luke,  20th  chapter,  22d  verse,  in  the  matter  of  paying  tribute 
to  Caesar,  the  word  for  tribute  is  gild.  In  Icelandic  gulur  is 
"yellow,"  and  gull  is  gold,  jewels.  In  German,  gelb  is  yellow. 
In  the  English  of  Chaucer,  yelwe,  which  is  the  same  as  Ger- 
man, a  soft  g  equal  to  y,  and  a  w  equal  to  b,  as  now  in  Piatt 
Deutsch,  or  Low  German.  In  German  giiltig  means  valid,  good. 
These  show  a  common  origin  for  those  words  meaning  money, 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  21 

like  to  sell,  has  been  an  old  puzzle  to  English  scholars. 
It  appears  in  earUer  English  as  **buggen,"  ''biggen," 
"beyen";  Anglo-Saxon  gives  us  bycgan  and  bicgan  and 
Gothic  bugjan.  Some  people  have  connected  this  with 
Sanskrit  bhug,  to  enjoy,  Latin  fungor.  But  why  should 
the  act  of  buying  be  called  an  enjoyment?  Others  trace 
it  to  Sanskrit  bhug,  in  the  sense  of  a  turning,  as  we  see  in 
(Greek)  ameibesthai,  in  Lithuanian  Wertimnas,  trade, 
Latin  verto  a  change  and  exchange.  (He  might  have 
added  New  Icelandic  vezlun,  business;  and  German 
wechsel,  exchange,  G.  W.)  It  may  be  so,  but  is  there  no 
better  way  of  accounting  for  this  troublesome  word? 
Let  us  remember  that  in  Icelandic  baug-r  means  money, 
but  originally  a  ring  (derived  from  the  root  biug,  bang, 
bog)  in  Anglo-Saxon  beag,  French  bague;  and  let  us 
consider  what  Vigfusson  tells  us  in  the  Icelandic  diction- 
ary, namely  'that  in  olden  times,  before  coined  gold  and 
silver  came  into  use,  the  metals  were  rolled  up  in  spiral 

for  gold  and  for  yellow.  And  El,  the  sun,  and  later,  god,  is  the 
original  of  "yellow." 

It  is  likely  that  the  name  of  the  great  god  of  our  Northern 
fathers,  Odin  or  Wodin,  belongs  with  this  lot  of  words.  The 
name  is  found  as  Guodn  (perhaps  Guoldn),  Gwodin,  and  in 
Welsh  Gwyddion.  The  Romans  tell  that  the  armies  of  Celts, 
Gauls,  and  all  the  "barbarians"  of  the  North  charged  with  a 
terrific  and  blood-curdling  yell.  This  was  no  doubt  a  simul- 
taneous salutation  and  prayer  to  Odin  or  other  god,  sometimes 
identical  with  the  sun;  sometimes  the  sun  is  his  eye,  he  being 
one-eyed.  The  "Rebel  yell,"  of  which  so  much  has  been  writ- 
ten, was  an  inheritance  of  this  habit  by  the  descendants  of 
the  Northmen  in  our  Southern  states. 

It  may  well  be  that  in  our  word  "disk,"  from  Latin  discus, 
the  syllable  dis  means  god,  showing  that  gold  and  silver  coins 
were  first  made  as  images  of  the  sun-god  and  the  moon-god 
respectively.  The  statement  of  the  Greek  dictionaries  that  it 
meant  a  quoit,  and  is  from  dikein,  to  throw,  is  not  satisfactory. 
Verbs  first  come  from  nouns,  as  we  have  the  noun,  "a  club," 
before  the  verb,  "to  club"  anyone  (strike  with  a  club.)  Is  it 
not  more  likely  that  discus  or  disk  is  from  theos  or  dis,  "god," 
and  eikon,  "image."  The  sun  or  the  moon  was  the  god  and 
the  coin  of  gold  or  silver  its  image. 


22  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

rings';  that  'in  law  the  payment  of  were-gild  (fine  for  kill- 
ing a  man)  is  particularly  called  baugr';  and  that  bauga- 
brot  are  cut-ofif  pieces  of  baugr,  bad  money.  In  old 
Saxon,  too,  wunden  gold,  wound  gold,  is  the  gold  used  for 
buying,  as  we  might  say  coined  gold.  A  mere  lump  of 
gold  or  any  other  metal  would  have  been  useless  for  such 
purpose,  because  it  could  not  be  divided;  while,  after  it 
had  been  reduced  to  a  more  pHant  form,  it  could  not  only 
more  easily  be  carried  about  in  the  form  of  twisted  rings 
or  coils,  armlets,  bracelets,  necklets,  but  could  also  more 
easily  be  bent,  broken  and  divided.  We  read  in  the  old 
Hildebrandslied : 

Want  er  do  arme  wuntane  bauga 

Cheisuringa  gitan,  so  imo  sd  der  chuning  gap, 

Huneo  truthin    *    *    *    * 

He  wound  therefrom  the  arm  twisted  hoops, 

Made  of  Imperial  rings  (coin),  as  the  King  had  given  them 

to  him, 
The  Lord  of  the  Huns.    (Max  Mueller,  German  Classics,  vol. 

i,  p.  8.) 

This  shows  that  these  hoops  or  armlets  were  really 
twisted  coils  of  gold  that  might  be  used  either  for  presents 
or  for  payments.  If  then,  in  Icelandic,  baugr,  from 
meaning  coil,  ring,  came  to  mean  money,  why  should  not 
a  verb,  meaning  to  bend,  to  coil,  have  been  used  in  the 
sense  of  buying?  The  formal  development  of  the  verb 
is  seen  most  clearly  in  Gothic;  there  as  Grimm  has  shown, 
we  have  the  verb  biugan,  baug,  bugun,  to  bend,  and  by 
the  side  of  it,  bugjan,  bauhta,  bauht,  to  buy,  just  as  in 
Anglo-Saxon  we  have  bugan,  beah,  to  bend,  and 
bucg(i)an,  bohte,  to  buy.  If  we  once  know  that  baugr  in 
Icelandic  meant  money,  everything  else  becomes  clear. 
We  might  then,  as  Professor  Skeat  suggests  in  a  letter  to 
me,  suppose  that  bycgan,  i.  e.  bygian,  was  formed  from 
byge,  ^s  sallan,  i.  e.  salian,  was  from  sala,  namely,  in  the 


THE  FINANCIAL  iPHILOSOPMY.  23 

sense  of  using  rings  or  using  salt  for  trade  or  barter. 
Whether  the  Saxons  in  using  bycgan  in  the  sense  of  buy- 
ing were  still  aware  of  the  original  meaning  of  the  verb, 
namely,  to  bend  or  to  twist  or  to  handle  a  wire  of  gold,  is 
a  question  difficult  to  answer.  In  Icelandic,  where  baugr 
retained  both  meanings,  rings  and  money,  the  reason 
why  money  was  called  baugr  might  have  been  more 
easily  remembered.  But  when,  as  in  Anglo-Saxon, 
such  reminders  were  lost,  the  memory  of  bycgan,  to 
buy,  having  meant  originally  to  bend  or  to  break  off 
a  piece  from  a  coil  of  gold,  would  vanish  very 
rapidly,  as  rapidly  as  the  Romans  forgot  the  original  pur- 
port of  pensio,  and  as  entirely  as  the  recollection  that  to 
pay  is  to  pacify  (pacare),  and  quits  is  connected  with 
quietus,  quiet,  has  passed  away  from  our  own  memory." 
In  a  footnote  M.  M.  adds,  "Ettmueller,  in  his  Anglo-Saxon 
Dictionary  (185 1)  p.  302,  mentions  byge,  masc,  meaning  a 
bend,  and  byge,  neuter,  meaning  commerce  or  trade, 
quoting  from  Schmidt,  Die  Gesetze  Der  Angelsachsen, 
1858,  p.  108." 

I  doubt  altogether  that  our  word  "sell"  comes  from  or 
is  akin  to  sal,  salt,  and  meant  to  swap  something  for  salt. 
Every  Aryan  tribe  must  have  had  a  word  or  words  mean- 
ing sell  long  before  salt  was  so  hard  to  get  as  to  put  it 
on  the  same  plane  of  importance  as  the  gold  and  silver 
rings  that  gained  and  kept  for  them  the  favor  of  the  gods. 
Without  trying  here  to  settle  the  origin  of  the  word  sell 
it  seems  more  likely  that  it  should  be  looked  for  as  akin 
to  hel  light  or  bright  (s  and  h  being  interchangeable  let- 
ters.) "Sell"  would  thus  mean  to  give  in  exchange  for  the 
bright  (metal).  It  thus  answers  to  and  is  the  complement 
of  bugjan  to  buy. 

Furthermore,  on  this  theory,  those  who  did  the  selling 
gave  something  for  a  metal  for  which  they  only  had  the 


U  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

name  "the  bright."  Those  who  did  the  buying  (bugjan) 
had  ''the  bright"  and  gave  it  in  exchange.  This  leads  us 
back  to  El,  God,  just  as  bugjan  to  buy  takes  us  to  Bog, 
god. 

He  does  not  notice  the  highly-important  fact  of  the 
connection  of  the  word  bog,  baug,  etc.,  with  old  Slavonic 
Bog,  God,  still  the  name  for  God  in  Russia;  nor  with  the 
same  words,  meaning  the  bending  skies  above  us,  the  rain- 
bow as  an  arch  or  as  a  perfect  circle,  the  rings  around  the 
sun  and  the  moon,  and  the  representation  of  the  sun  and 
the  moon  by  circles  of  stones  and  hence  also  by  rings  of 
gold  and  silver  respectively.  The  natural  colors  of  these 
metals  by  appealing  to  the  sense  of  superstition  gave  them 
''feigned  values,"  and  by  reflex  action  superstition  made 
men  fashion  them  after  the  natural  objects  that  appealed 
most  strongly  to  their  superstition. 

It  is  likely  that  most  ancient  peoples  had  a  rehgious  or 
superstitious  origin  for  their  national  or  tribal  names. 
Eni,  enni,  ani,  anni,  ini  mean  men  (Gypsy  engro,  a  man). " 
I  think  Goth  is  shortened  from  Guodan  (Wodin,  Odin), 
and  ina.  The  Goths  were  Odin's  people.  Gemiani  had  no 
dDubt  a  soft  G,  as  in  Spanish  Hermano,  H  is  now  silent, 
but  was  once  i  or  y.  Yermani  is  thus  lormunr  (a  name  of 
Odin)  and  ani  men.  Odin  is  the  sun  or  the  sun  is  his 
eye.  Goths  and  Germans  were  bright-haired.  "The 
Goth's  metal"  was  perhaps  yellow  gold. 

Another  reason,  as  M.  M.  hints,  for  making  their 
gold  and  silver  into  neck-rings  and  arm-rings  was  that  they 
had  no  pockets  and  that  was  the  best  and  safest  way  to 
carry  them.  (The  Dying  Gladiator  or  Gaul  has  one  on 
his  neck.)  That  this  way  of  making  them  into  images 
of  sacred  objectsi  or  objects  of  worship  and  awe  also  made 
them  fit  their  necks  and  arms  where  they  could  be  most 
safely  kept  from  loss  seemed  to  them,  no  doubt,  provi- 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  ^§ 

dential  and  con'oborative  of  the  soundness  of  their  super- 
stitious behef.  They  viewed  their  arms  for  such  use,  as 
did  that  pious  modern,  who  praised  the  wisdom  of  Divine 
Providence  in  making  man's  arms  just  long  enough  to 
reach  the  bottoms  of  his  trousers  pockets. 

Likely  he  mistakes  in  saying  that  "bauga-brot  are  cut-off 
pieces  of  baugr,bad  money."  Brot  in  skepps-brot,  Swedish, 
shipwreck,  is  plainly  akin  to  break  (t  and  k  changing  from 
one  to  the  other  in  defiance  of  the  laws  that  philologists 
lay  down  for  them,  as  a  child  saying  tan  for  can.)  Bauga- 
brot  is  parallel  with  our  word  'bit'  as  used  for  12J  cents  in 
the  South  and  West,  fwo  bits,  four  bits,  six  bits,  a  quarter, 
half  and  three-quarters  of  a  dollar  respectively. 

The  word  byg,  to  build  a  house,  Scotch  biggin,  hence 
newbiggin,  which  is  found  in  America,  as  Newbegin,  the 
name  of  a  town — ^justifies  us  in  thinking  that  the  houses  of 
the  ancient  so-called  "Germans"  figured  in  Ridpath's 
*'Great  Races,"  cylindrical  in  shape,  were  originally 
so  shaped  by  laying  the  foundation  or  lower  courses  of 
the  material  in  the  same  form  that  they  represented  the  sun 
or  the  moon,  or  Bog  the  god,  oh  the  ground,  by  a  circle. 
The  motive  was  to  show  to  the  god  their  piety  and  keep 
him  from  injuring  it.  Churches  now  built  in  cross-shape 
illustrate  to  some  extent  the  feeling. 

Since  Binet  and  Ferre  published  their  work  on  hypno- 
tism and  "suggestion,"  and  drew  attention  to  the  fact  that 
the  way  in  which  the  few  so  often  lead  the  many  in  politics, 
religion,  etc:,  is  perhaps  akin  to  hypnotism,  it  has  become 
common  to  attempt  wholesale  hypnotism  and  "suggestion" 
through  newspapers  and  lectures.  In  one  of  the  gold-fiat 
organs  in  Missouri  the  following  fair  sample  of  all  such 
attempted  hypnotism  through  pseudo-science  was  repro- 
duced. 


26  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

THE    STORY    OF    MONEY. 


HISTORY  OF  SOME  OLD  MEDIA  OF 
EXCHANGE. 


A  Descending  Replacement  Among  the  Metals  Used  in  Coin- 
age— The  Primitive  Forms  of  Barter  Among 
the  Uncivilized  Races. 


(From  the  Chicago  Record). 
Money  is  a  subject  that  has  risen  into  such  prominence 
of  late  that  the  first  extraordinary  session  of  the  United 
States  Congress  since  the  '70' s'  has  been  convened  particu- 
larly on  its  account.  This  event  seems  to  be  one  of  the 
later  stages  of  a  sort  of  descending  replacement  among  the 
metals  used  in  coinage,  a  process  that  has,  during  the 
centuries  and  milleniums  of  human  history,  slowly  but 
plainly  substituted  copper  for  iron,  silver  for  copper  and 
gold  for  silver,  says  the  Washington  Star.  Each  of  these 
metals  seems  to  have  made  its  appearance  as  coin  in 
ascending  order,  and  some  are  even  ready  to  speculate 
on  the  possible  appearance  in  the  future  of  some  still  more 
rare  and  costly  metal  to  press  the  coveted  yellow  standard 
lower  in  the  scale,  as  it  has  done  to  silver." 

Nothing  but  dense  ignorance  of  the  subject  would 
cause  any  honest  person  with  regard  for  his  reputation 
to  make  such  a  statement,  contrary  as  it  is  to  the  facts, 
as  will  be  shown. 

He  says  further; 

"CAUSE  OF  THE  PROGRESSIVE  DECLINE. 

"This  progressive  and  general  decline  in  the  value  of 
the  material  basis  of  the  currency  is  attributed  to  the 
corresponding  industrial  and  intellectual  progress  of  the 
race,  whereby  wider  adaptability  in  the  choice  of  materials 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  ^7 

is  steadily  gained,   and   whereby  the   walls   of  custom 
erected  by  human  fancy  are  generally  prostrated." 

Tihe  image  seen  in  a  king's  dream  began  with  a  head  of 
gold  and  ended  with  toes  of  iron  and  clay.  This  pseudo- 
scientist  begins  with  an  image  whose  'head  is  iron  and  its 
toes  "currency,"  i.  e.,  promises  of  the  media  written  on 
paper.  Bills  of  credit,  except  mere  coin  certificates,  do  not 
represent  money.  They  are  based  on  all  products.  They 
are  attempts  to  "monetize"  a  little  of  everything.  Thus 
there  is  no  weld  of  the  media  named  upon  credit  bills. 
Credit  bills-  are  not  an  evolution  from  something  akin  to 
themselves,  but  a  substitution  of  something  foreign.  They 
mix  no  better  with  coin  than  clay  with  cast  iron.  The 
error  of  saying  gold  has  displaced  silver  by  its 
"wider  adaptability,"  though  all  exchanges  could  not  be 
made  by  gold  only,  but  can  be  made  by  silver  alone,  is 
fully  treated  herein  further  on.    He  goes  on: 

"A  speculation  more  inviting  than  that  regarding  the 
advent  of  a  new  substance  is  contemplation  of  a  time 
when  this  progress  shall  have  either  wholly  displaced  or 
radically  degraded  all  the  metals  as  the  -medium  of  ex- 
change, substituting  something  of  an  abstract  or  repre- 
sentative nature  for  material  acting  as  the  direct  bearer 
of  intrinsic  value.  It  may,  perhaps,  some  day  be  seen 
from  a  study  of  the  history  of  money  that  the  values 
which  men  attribute  to  the  precious  metals  are  largely 
imaginary." 

The  writer  ought  to  have  told  to  whom  the  "specula- 
tion" about  a  thing  of  an  abstract  mature,  used  as  the 
medium  by  which  material  things  are  exchanged,  would 
be  "inviting."  The  plan  of  substituting  a  "representa- 
tive" of  material  things — national  bank  notes  represent- 
ing the  property  of  everybody  so  far  as  it  may  be  needed 


28^  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

— for  gold  and  silver,  we  know  has  a  "speculation"  in  it 
that  is  exceedingly  ''inviting"  to  those  engaged  in  it. 
This  is  ?lso  "Comfort  ye,  comfort  ye,  my  people."  He 
means  "never  mind  about  Tory  success  in  overthrowing 
law  and  constitution ;  for  gold  will  follow  silver  ere  long." 
He  would  quiet  the  eels  under  skinning. 

Then  comes  this  piece  of  wisdom: 

"Probably  the  most  primitive  money  consisted  of  the 
skins  of  wild  animals.  The  foundation  of  this  theory  is 
the  assumption  that  the  earliest  creatures  that  could  be 
called  men  were  hunters.  The  meat  which  was  procured 
did  not  possess  the  requisite  durability,  the  bones  lacked 
high  value,  but  the  dried  pelts  possessed  both  qualities. 
Etymological  researches,  moreover,  show  that  the  earliest 
races  used  skins  as  the  representative  of  value.  Classical 
writers  have  recorded  traditions  to  the  effect  that  the 
earliest  currency  used  at  Rome,  Lacedaemon  and  Car- 
thage was  made  of  leather,  and  such  money  is  said  to  have 
circulated  in  Russia  as  late  as  the  reign  of  Peter  the  Great. 

-"In  places  a  particular  skin  seems  to  have  become  the 

•standard.     This  among  the  aborigines  about  Hudson's 

Bay  the  early  traders  found  to  be  that  of  the  beaver." 

That  is  when  all  men  were  hunters  and  the  only  prop- 
erty that  any  one  had  to  exchange  was  skins,  and  the 
only  thing  there  was  to  get  in  exchange  was  other  skins  of 
the  same  sort,  the  medium  by  which  the  exchange  was 
made — ^the  money — ^was  a  part  of  the  same  lot  of  skins. 
The  chasm  that  separates  man  in  the  hunter  stage  from 
hunters  in  the  nineteenth  century  using  beaver  skins  that 
are  salable  in  London  and  shipped  there  annually,  this 
writer  steps  over  like  a  crack  in  the  floor. 

It  is  the  contact  of  a  race  that  has  out-grown  the  hunter 
stage,  or  otherwise  not  in  it,  with  one  still  in  that  stage 
that  gives  to  the  skins  taken  by  hunters  an  exchange  value. 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  29 

Shallow  thinking  on  the  subject  and  want  of  actual  ex- 
perience of  life  among  men  in  the  hunter  stage  leads  to  the 
mistake  of  thinking  that  skins  of  wild  beasts  were  media 
of  exchange  among  hunters  and  those  of  cattle  among 
men  in  the  pastoral  stage  (when  all  were  equally  well  sup- 
plied with  them.)  Even  the  great  name  of  Mommsen  has 
been  used  to  spread  this  error.    (See  Enc.  Brit.  Money.) 

The  people  of  Rome  were  never  in  the  hunter  state; 
nor  were  the  Carthagenians  or  Lacedemonians.  If  they 
used  peltries  as  the  medium  of  exchange  it  was  not  because 
they  were  descended  from  men  in  the  hunter  state.  Never 
in  any  part  of  the  history  of  the  three  peoples  coming 
under  the  above  three  names  can  it  be  thought  that  they 
dressed  exclusively  in  skins.  The  demand  for  skins 
among  them  could  not  have  been  very  great  and  general. 

That  he  means  to  be  teaching  the  evolution  of  money 
is  shown  by  the  following  language,  though  the  word  is 
avoided. 

"A  COMPARATIVELY  RECENT  CONVENIENCE. 

"But  perfectly  coined  money  is  a  comparatively  recent 
convenience,  and  the  story  of  the  development  to  that 
which  is  at  present  in  use  is  full  of  interest. 

"Fortunately  for  the  scientist,  the  present  retains  rem- 
nants of  the  past.  The  astronomer  studies  the  solar  sys- 
tem in  its  early  ages  by  turning  telescope  and  spectroscope 
toward  the  primitive  cosmic  masses  that  still  give  variety 
to  the  stellar  spaces,  somewhat  as  the  old-fashioned  ani- 
mals of  Australia  add  curious  interest  to  the  zoological 
world.  The  biologist  is  favored  with  existing  representa- 
tives of  some  very  early  forms  of  life,  and  the  numismatic 
student  is  aided  in  his  researches  into  the  history  of  money 
by  looking  about  among  the  people  that  still  swarm  upon 
the  various  lands  of  the  earth. 


so  TTHE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

"The  natives  of  the  Society  Islands  as  they  lived  not 
many  years  ago  will  serve  as  the  subject  of  the  first  les- 
son. A  Parisian  singer,  making  a  professional  tour 
around  the  world,  gave  a  concert  in  the  islands.  She  was 
to  receive  a  third  part  of  the  receipts.  When  counted  her 
share  was  found  to  consist  of  three  pigs,  twenty-three 
turkeys,  forty-four  chickens,  five  thousand  cocoanuts,  be- 
sides considerable  quantities  of  bananas,  lemons  and 
oranges.  At  the  French  capital  all  this  material  would 
have  added  4,000  francs  to  her  resources,  but  on  the 
islands  it  was  worth  to  her  only  the  value  of  that  part  which 
could  be  consumed." 

That  is,  the  inconvenience  of  being  without  money  is 
a  stage  in  its  evolution. 

And  furthermore,  what  propriety  is  there  in  comparing 
a  small  group  of  islands  without  metals  with  the  whole 
white  race  living  where  the  metals  were  first  found 
and  first  smelted? 

And  here  is  another  case  of  the  latter  kind: 

"PRIMITIVE  BARTER. 
"Other  travelers  among  tribes  where  primitive  barter 
has  not  yet  developed  something  resembling  a  com- 
mon medium  of  exchange  have  been  given  a  still  keener 
appreciation  of  the  advantages  coming  from  the  use  of 
money.  Wallace,  when  in  the  Malay  Archipelago,  could 
not  procure  supplies  for  dinner  without  a  special  bargain 
and  much  bickering  upon  each  occasion.  Because  the 
vender  of  edibles  did  not  always  happen  to  meet  with 
something  desirable  among  the  articles  which  the  party 
had  to  offer  in  exchange,  Mr.  Wallace  and  his  companions 
were  often  compelled  to  do  without  a  meal.  These  ex- 
periences led  them  to  hold  in  readiness  a  supply  of  such 
articles  as  the  natives  would  invariably  accept./' 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  31 

After  which  comes  this,  written  after  assurance  that 
the  reader  is  hypnotized: 

"Such  was  doubtless  the  first  form  of  money — any  com- 
modity which  was  esteemed  by  all  persons,  which  would 
be  readily  received  at  all  times,  and  which  all  desired  to 
possess  in  unlimited  quantities — ^the  generalized  value 
which  constitutes  the  lubricator  of  commerce." 

That  is,  a  hunter  never  got  too  many  skins  and  was 
always  ready  to  exchange  his  own  for  another  hunter^s 
skins  of  the  same  kind,  and  so  of  the  other  things  used 
as  money. 

The  last  extract  proves  what  the  writer  of  it  did  not 
intend  to  prove:  that  forms  of  property  abundant  and 
common  to  all  could  not  be  the  natural  medium  of  ex- 
change in  the  absence  of  an  export  demand.  And  there 
has  never  been  but  one  medium  that  fulfills  his  require- 
ment: esteemed  by  all,  received  at  all  times,  desired  by  all 
in  unlimited  quantity.  That  medium  is  gold  and  silver. 
In  the  history  of  man  and  nature  the  two  money  metals 
are  unique  as  to  their  supply  and  the  demand  for  them, 
and  they  are  chemical  elements  and  necessarily  unlike 
any  other  chemical  elements  and  unlike  non-elementaiy 
materials  bartered. 

The  above  anonymous  extracts 'sound  very  much  like 
David  A.  Wells,  who  says  in  his  "Downfall  of  Certain 
Financial  Fallacies"  (Forum,  October,  1893):  "In  short, 
by  a  process  of  evolution,  as  natural  and  inevitable  as  any 
occurring  in  the  animal  or  vegetable  kingdom,  gold  has 
come  to  be  recognized  and  demanded  as  never  before 
in  such  countries  as  the  best  instrumentality  for  measur- 
ing values  and  effecting  exchanges."  To  call  the  present 
position  of  gold  or  that  of  silver  the  result  of  natural  evo- 
lution is  the  same  as  calling  the  artificially  distorted  skull 
of  a  Flathead  Indian  a  "natural  process  of  evolutipn?'^ 


32  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

One  has  only  to  know  what  evolution  is  to  see  the 
charlatanism '  in  the  pretence  that  gold  as  money  is  the 
finality  in  the  course  of  the  evolution  of  money.  P'or  evo- 
lution is  change  from  the  simple  to  the  complex.  They 
point  to  an  earlier  day  when  the  world's  money  was  ex- 
ceedingly complex,  and  then  to  the  Jew-ruled  nations  of 
Europe,  where  it  has  to-day  reached  the  extreme  of  sim- 
plicity— as  evolution.  Absolutely  the  opposite  of  what 
these  alleged  evolutionists  tell  us  is  true.  The  first  thing 
ever  used  by  the  white  race  as  the  very  rudimentary  and 
original  germ  of  modern  money  (truly  defined  by  Adam 
Smith),  the  common  medium  of  exchange,  was  gold. 
Powerful  proof  of  this  is  in  the  words  of  the  inscriptions  of 
the  buried  cities  of  Chaldea  and  Babylonia,  whose  people 
no  doubt  got  their  knowledge  of  metals  and  coinage  as 
Greece  did,  from  Lydia.* 

When  there  came  a  differencing  and  a  part  of  the  jewel- 
metal  was  set  off  from  the  other  and  fashioned  for  use  as 
the  medium  of  exchange  it  was  a  true  example  of  evolu- 
tion, a  change  from  the  simple  office  of  jewelry  to  the 
two  offices  of  jewelry  and  a -medium  of  exchange  separate 
from  each  other.     This  is  what  evolution  is,  a  change 

*  "Lydia,"  the  name  of  the  country  that  is  the  mother  of 
money  and  so  of  civilization,  is,  I  think,  found  again  in  the 
word  Lithuania.  The  Lithuanians  call  themselves  Littva.  Va 
is  perhaps  Sanskrit  vas,  Swedish  bua,  bo,  praet.  bodde,  to 
dwell,  to  live.  It  is  likely  that  Litt  is  Old  Norse  lydr  or  lythr, 
and  is  the  same  as  Dutch  lied,  Gernuan  leute,  people;  in  Old 
English  lewd,  meaning  common,  now  with  a  worse  meaning. 
Littva  then  would  seem  to  mean  those  living  as  common  people. 
I  take  this  to  mean  a  race  with  no  orders  of  nobility,  titles  or 
kings,  but  all  equal  in  rights  and  station.  Some  invaders, 
tempted  by  their  gold,  may  have  overcome  them  and  taken 
their  country  and  some  unwilling  to  be  enslaved  went  to  the 
Baltic  and  perhaps  the  North  sea.  From  the  eastern  shores  of 
the  Baltic  where  they  were  know  as  Esterlings  they  can  be 
traced  to  Scotland  by  the  name  Stirling  and  from  them  the 
British  got  the  name  sterling  used  of  their  present  money. 
Thus  Lydia  is  old  Russian  ground, 


THE  B'INANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  33 

from  the  simple  toUhe  complex.  It  is  not  what  Mr.  Wells 
and  other  charlatans  say — a  change  from  the  use  of  many 
things  or  two  metals — the  complex — to  the  use  of  one 
metal — the  simple.  By  the  sameness  of  e  and  o,  seen 
hereinbefore,  Geld,  High  German  for  "money,"  is  the 
same  as  gold. 

Note  the  generally  loose  reasoning  and  the  unwarrant- 
able assumptions  in  regard  to  "pecuniary"  as  from 
"pecus,"  a  flock,  errors  backed  by  the  great  name  of 
Mom.msen.  Here  is  the  reasoning:  Cattle  were  once 
money,  the  medium  of  exchange  of  other  commodities; 
proof,  "pecuniary"  is  from  pecus  (genitive,  pecoris),  a 
flock.  Does  "pecuniary"  as  an  adjective  qualifying  "af- 
fairs," for  instance,  now,  and  has  it  always  meant  only 
"money  affairs"?  Before  paper  currency  was  ever  used, 
and  when  silver  and  gold  only  were  used  as  the  medium 
of  exchange,  did  "pecuniary"  only  relate  to  coin? 

Among  the  Roman  writers  neither  pecunia  nor  moneta 
was  used  as  the  general  term  for  money,  but  aes,  metal. 
Cattle  were  never  money,  nor  were  flocks  ever  the  com- 
mon medium  of  exchange,  for  the  excellent  reason  that 
at  the  time  they  are  alleged  to  have  been  such  they  were 
almost  the  only  existing  property  and  everybody  who 
had  any  property  had  flocks  and  herds,  and  did  not  care 
to  exchange  them  for  others  of  the  same  kind,  and  would 
not  have  used  flocks  and  herds  for  the  medium  of  ex- 
change if  he  had  so  wished  to  exchange.  Pecunia  meant 
"wealth,"  when  cattle  or  flocks  were  the  only  wealth,  and 
kept  that  meaning  when  wealth  included  other  forms  of 
property. 

Lefevre  (Race  and  Language)  gives  the  root  kru 
or  klu  as  the  original  word  for  brilliancy.  They  may 
be  akin  to  the  words  koh,  hog,  hoch,  etc.,  meaning  high 
and  spoken  of  the  sun  and  the  glory  of  the  snow-peaks 


34  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

glistening  in  the  sunlight,  charming  irresistibly  and  strik- 
ing with  awe.  It  is  likely  that  they  originate  in  our  com- 
monest involuntary  expression  of  surprise  or  wonder: 
O-o-o-h,  ho-o-o,  hoo-oo-ee!  R  and  1  are  often  inter- 
changeable/and  r  is  often  nearly  the  German  ch  (as  in 
the  word  Paris,  as  pronounced  by  Parisians.)  Lenormant, 
in  his  Akkadian  Studies,  gives  kii  as  gold.  The  caret 
over  the  u  shows  that  a  letter  is  lost,  which  may  have  been 
a  semi-vocal  r.  He  gives  ku~par  as  "money."  Par  I  take 
to  be  an  Aryan  word  akin  to  our  word  "fair,"  Swedish 
fager.  It  is  likely  that  it  is  in  the  word  Persian,  which 
would  mean  white  men,  or  it  may  be  "fair  gods."  Ku-par, 
then,  is  "white  gold."  The  name  of  silver  in  the  Afghan 
language  to-day  means  white  gold.* 

Wilkinson,  in  his  Ancient  Egypt  (note  chap.  9,  p.  244), 
says :  "Silver  was  evidently  of  later  use  than  gold,  silver 
being  called  white  gold." 

The  history  of  the  word  copper  (Latin,  cuprum;  Ger- 
man, kupfer;  Dutch,  koper;  Swedish,  koppar;  Dan- 
ish, kobber)  strikes  these  quack-evolutionists  a  cruel 
blow  and  alone  smashes  their  fraudulent  theory 
of  the  evolution  of  money,  their  bogus  "descend- 
ing displacement"  with  its  air  of  wisdom.  Ku- 
par,  which  meant  "white  gold,"  and  also  "money," 
was  silver.  But  evidently  when  later  on  copper  was  used 
for  coins  it  was  called  "ku-par"  in  the  sense  of  "money." 
Thus  we  see  that  copper  as  money  comes  after  both  gold 
and  silver  by  the  unanswerable  evidence  of  philology. 
Men  would  not  give  a  red  metal  the  name  of  "white  gold" 
on  first  finding  it.     When  they  called  the  copper  coins 

*  The  word  Mede  may  have  a  different  origin  and  meaning 
from  any  yet  given  or  suspected,  towit:  the  Sanskrit  word 
medhu,  meaning  honey,  and  in  this  case  given  from  the  color 
pl  tlie  hair. 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  35 

"ku-par,"  that  is,  "money,"  they  did  as  we  do  in  calling 
the  promise  of  the  United  States  or  a  bank  "money."  Or 
as  a  Frenchman  might  speak  of  sending  argent  when  he 
is  sending  gold,  the  word  meaning  silver  originally,  but 
now  the  usual  name  of  money  in  French. 

But  the  interest  in  this  so-called  "Akkadian,"  or  Chal- 
dean word,  ku-par,  does  not  end  there.  There  can  scarce- 
ly be  a  doubt  that  certain  Aryan  words  in  Europe,  mean- 
ing to  buy,  are  akin  to  it,  from  it,  or  they  and  it  are  from 
a  common  source.  These  are  Dano-Norwegian,  kjoben; 
Swedish,  kopa;  New  Icelandic,  kaupa;  German,  kau- 
fen;  Dutch,  koopen.  In  English  we  have  "cheap"  and 
"cheapen."  To  cheapen  is  to  higgle  over  the  price  in  buy- 
ing. In  French  it  is  expressed  by  marchandiser,  to  cheap- 
en, to  'higgle.  Old  High  German  (Frankish)  choufon 
(koofen  in  sound);  Servian,  kupiti;  Gothic,  kaupon; 
Bohemian,  koupiti  (traffic,  trade);  Polish,  kupic;  Rus- 
sian, kupiti;  Hungarian,  kupecz,  all  given  in  the  Cen- 
tury Dictionary  under  the  word  cheap,  show  how  widely 
spread  among  Aryans  and  their  neighbors  was  this  root 
ku-par.  (Russian  kopek  is  likely  akin.)  May  we  not  sus- 
pect that  French  couper  (koopay),  and  from  it  coupon,  go 
back  to  a  time  when  from  the  noun  kii-par  (metal  cut  into 
convenient  sized  bits)  came  the  verb,  meaning  to  so  cut 
and  finally  to  cut  in  general?* 

*  This  set  of  words  by  their  kinship  to  kG-par  alone  go  far 
toward  settling  the  dispute  over  the  orlgiix  of  Cnaldean  civiliza- 
tion in  favor  of  the  "Slav  theory"  of  Gesenius.  Is  it  not  likely 
that  in  the  first  syllable  of  "Chaldean"  we  have  the  same  word 
as  Latin  calculus,  a  stone?  That  is  the  Akkadian  kal-kal, 
"frapper  violement",  to  strike  violently,  of  Lenormant.  That  is, 
the  Chaldeans  were  smiths.  In  Norwegian  hamar  is  a  large 
rock.  Dr.  Isaac  Taylor  in  trying  to  prove  the  Etruskans  to  be 
Turanians  says  kal  in  Turkish  denotes  the  action  of  smelting 
metals.  It  might  well  be  a  loan  word  from  Aryans,  and  have 
separated  into  the  meanings  of  melt  and  hammer  just  as  we 
perhaps  have  smelt  and  smite  from  the  same  word.  The  smiths 
were  first  hammerers  and  later  were  hammerers  and  smeltery 
bot^.  '  •      ' 


36  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

Grimm  thought  that  from  the  Gothic  kaupatjan,  to  slap 
or  strike,  came  "striking  a  bargain."  Is  it  not  more  likely 
that  it  is  akin  to  kii-par,  money  struck  or  coined  and  so 
came  to  mean  other  kinds  of  striking.  The  die  was  struck 
with  a  hammer  in  coining. 

It  is  possible  that  we  can  find  proof  in  the  word  rupee 
that  ku,  meaning  gold,  was  krus  (the  caret  over  u  show- 
ing a  shortening),  and  the  latter  the  first  syllable  of  Greek 
krusos.  For  in  the  "Akkadian"  of  Lenormant  pi*  means 
"ear."  Rupee  may  be  a  worn-down  form  of  kru-pi,  gold 
ear;  as  Swedish  glas-ogon,  glass-eyes,  or  eye-glasses. 
The  rupee  being  a  silver  coin  would  show  a  vast  lapse  of 
time  since  its  original  was  an  ear-ring  of  gold. 

If  the  reader  will  look  back  at  the  long  and  careful  ex- 
planation made  about  the  word  gold  and  its  sameness  of 
origin  with  yule,  he  will  see  here  also  that  it  may  well  be 
that  the  word  ku  and  the  roots  kru,  klu,  given  by  Lefevre 
are  of  the  same  lot  with  gold,  yule.  El,  lu  and  Hu,  and 
that  they  all  have  as  their  germ  the  exclamation  of  sur- 
prise, admiration,  awe  or  wonder  made  by  savages  and 
civilized  men  aHke.  That  the  word  krus  in  Sanskrit 
means  to  s'hout,  is  striking. 

These  quack-evolutionists  are  as  unfortunate  with  their 
story  of  iron  as  with  that  of  copper.  Max  MuUer  says 
in  his  chapter  on  "The  Third  Metal"  in  his  "Biographies 
of  Words":  Whether  the  Aryas  before  their  separation 
were  acquainted  with  iron,  etc.,  has  been  a  question  often 
asked  and  often  answered.  At  first  nothing  seemed  easier. 
Ayas  in  later  Sanskrit  does  certainly  mean  iron,  and  as 
ayas  is  tlie  same  as  Latin  aes,  and  Gothic  aiz,  no  one  hes- 
itated to  ascribe  to  the  undivided  Aryas  an  acquaintance 

*  P,  b  and  w  are  interchangeable.  Suppose  this  p  from  older 
b,  that  from  w  and  we  have  wi  or  French  oui,  ouir  'to  hear*. 
§i  in  the  same  language  means  'eye', 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  37 

with  iron.  I  did  so  myself  in  1856  in  my  essay  on  Com- 
parative Mythology.  When,  however,  we  are  told  by 
archaeologists  that  several  of  the  Aryan  nations  were 
ignorant  of  iron  tools  and  weapons  even  during  historical 
times,  it  seemed  difficult  to  believe  that  they  should  have 
forgotten  the  usefulness  of  iron,  if  they  had  once  discov- 
ered it."  He  sums  up  as  follows:  "All  therefore  we  are 
justified  in  stating  positively  is,  that  at  the  time  of  the 
Rig- Veda,  besides  silver  and  gold,  a  third  metal  was 
known  and  named  ayas ;  but  whether  that  name  referred 
to  either  copper  or  iron,  or  to  metal  in  general,  there  is 
no  evidence  to  show."  Whitney,  in  the  preface  to  his 
Sanskrit  grammar,  says  that  the  hymns  called  the  Rig- 
Veda  may  have  been  made  2000  B.  C. 

Wilkinson  quotes  from  Robertson's  America:  "Man  was 
long  acquainted  with  the  other  metals  before  he  acquired 
the  art  of  fabricating  iron."  Wilkinson  says  (p.  247,  ch.  9, 
vol.  2):  "It  is  generally  allowed  that  copper  or  bronze 
was  known  long  before  iron." 

Our  quacks  in  their  anxiety  to  make  out  a  case  of  evo- 
lution from  iron  money  down  to  gold  money  settle  what 
the  general  judgment  of  scientific  men  has  not  yet  set- 
tled: that  iron  was  used  as  money  or  otherwise  by  our 
fathers  before  copper  was.  The  word  iron  itself  would 
perhaps  tell  us  if  we  could  find  out  its  "history,"  as  Max 
Mueller  says,  that  is  a  word's  best  definition.  There  can  be 
no  doubt  that  the  words  ayas,  aes,  aiz,  etc.,  are  akin  to  the 
word  ak  that  in  Sanskrit  means  rock.  He  says  (Biog.  of 
W^ords,  p.  260) :  "Akmoon  in  Greek  means  javelin  and  no 
longer  stone,  but  it  is  the  same  word  as  Sanskrit  asan, 
which  means  stone,  and  afterward  weapon.  Akmoon  in 
Greek  means  stone  and  anvil,  asman  in  Sanskrit  means 
stone  only,  and  particularly  a  stone  used  as  a  weapon." 
As  in  Sanskrit  is  given  by  Benfey  as  "to  $hine,"  fgr  a 


38  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

secondary  meaning.  Max  Mueller  says  in  same  chapter  30: 
"In  Sanskrit  iron,  and  iron  only,  is  called  asmasarah,  gir- 
isaram,  silasaram,  i.  e.,  the  sap  or  inside  of  stone."  And 
he  adds,  "Thus  indicating  the  difficult  process  by  which 
it  was  obtained."  But  does  it  not  rather  show  that  they 
only  used  copper  and  silver  in  such  ores  as  show  what 
they  are  at  a  glance,  and  that  iron  was  the  only  metal  that 
seemed  to  be  "the  sap  of  stone"?  Is  it  not  likely  that  cop- 
per as  known  to  the  ancients  was  for  a  long  time  only 
the  nearly  pure  ore  such  as  our  Indians  got  on  Lake 
Superior  and  worked?  Gold  would  be  found  by  men  who 
were  not  miners;  pure  copper  would  not  be  found  in  con- 
siderable quantities  before  mining  was  learned.  Even 
nearly  pure  wire  silver  as  found  in  nature  would  need  to 
be  melted.  But  to  get  out  the  "sap  of  stone,"  that  is,  to 
smelt  iron,  would  seem  to  be  an  advance  over  working 
either  of  the  other  three  metals.  What  race  would  we 
natu'*ally  expect  to  do  this?  Certainly  the  race  that  is 
and  has  doubtless  always  been  the  most  intelligent — the 
Aryan.  Now  let  us  again  sift  the  word  iron.  Its  old 
form  seems  to  have  been  iarn,  short  for  isarn  or  eisarn. 
It  is  m&t  likely  that  this  is  a  worn-down  form  of  ayas-ar-an. 
Ayas  is  metal,  ar  means  bright  or  white,  and  an  or  en 
means  men.  (Aryan.)  Iron  therefore  is  literally  the  metal 
of  the  white  men  or  Aryans.  "The  Goth's  metal"  is  an 
unexplained  reference  in  the  sagas  of  the  north.  Was 
it  gold,  the  color  of  their  hair;  or  was  it  silver,  also  the 
color  of  their  hair;  or  was  it  the  metal  that  they  alone 
knew  how  to  make  at  one  time  in  the  history  of  the  human 
race?  Certainly  we  are  warranted  from  this  in  saying 
that  iron  was  not  the  first  metal  worked  and  was  not  the 
first  used  as  money. 

Canon  Taylor  (Aryan  Origins)  says  Latin  ferrum,  iron, 
yva3  formerly  fersum,  and  is  from  bar(e)sum,  which  hU 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHiLOSOPHV.  3§ 

ter  he  thinks  is  Semitic.  But  the  esum  is  doubtless  our 
Aryan  word  aes.  Bar  would  seem  to  mean  the  race  whose 
esum  or  metal  it  is.  Bar  may  be  only  a  form  of  par,  Eng- 
lish fair,  Swedish  fager,  and  be  the  same  as  in  Parsee, 
Par-sen,  or  Persian,  and  mean  *'white."  The  original  un- 
worn word  may  have  been  Parsen  esum,  or  Barsen  esum, 
or  such  like  form,  meaning  "metal  of  the  white  men,"  or 
"metal  of  the  fair  gods."  "The  Apron  of  the  Blacksmith" 
was  the  national  standard  of  the  ancient  Persians.  The 
name  Asar,  or  gods,  from  whom  the  Northmen  said  they 
in  part  descended,  seems  to  connect  them  with  aes  or 
metal.  They  were  no  doubt  metal  workers  and  seemed 
to  be  gods  to  those  who  did  not  know  the  art.  "Persian" 
may  have  had  a  longer  form :  par-as-en,  or  fair  metalmen. 

Of  the  seven  tables  in  the  foundation  of  the  palace  of 
Sargon  in  Khorsabad  the  second  was  of  kaspu,  which  is 
translated  "silver."  (Hilprecht  Assyriaca,  p.  80.)  The 
word  kas  may  be  likened  to  German  guss,  used  of  cast- 
ing metals;  English,  gush.  The  Gothic  word  silubr,  silver, 
is  perhaps  from  or  akin  to  Sanskrit  salila,  water;  and 
bhu,  to  be,  to  become.  (Molten  silver  is  clear  like  water.) 
This  goes  to  prove  it  the  first  metal  smelted.  It  may  be 
(on  the  "Slav  theory"  of  Gesenius)  that  pu  in  kas-pu  is  the 
same  as  Sanskrit  bhu,  to  become.  Kaspu  would  thus 
be  "that  which  has  become  liquid  or  gushing,"  as  silubr 
is  that  metal  which  "became  like  water."  The  word  Kash- 
mere,  or  Kasimiri,  perhaps  thus  shows  that  it  is  an  old 
home  of  the  Aryas,  or  fair  men,  the  metal  smelters.  The 
Hebrew  word  ksp,  silver,  is  commonly  used  for  money, 
as  argent  in  French  and  arian  in  Welsh. 

The  opinion,  founded  on  the  nature  of  the  two  metals, 
that  gold  is  an  earlier  and  more  barbaric  metal,  and  that 
silver  marks  an  advance  in  civilization,  is  strengthened 
by  discoveries  in  ancient  Chaldea. .  Rawlinson  says  (Seven 


40  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

Great  Monarchies):  'The  metallurgy  of  the  Chaldeans, 
though  indicative  of  a  higher  state  of  civilization  than 
their  stone  weapons,  is  still  of  a  somewhat  rude  character, 
and  indicates  a  nation  but  just  emerging  out  of  an  almost 
barbaric  simplicity.  Metal  seems  to  be  scarce,  and  not 
many  kinds  are  found.  There  is  no  silver,  zinc  or 
platinum,  but  only  gold,  copper,  tin,  lead  and  iron.  Gold 
is  found  in  beads,  ear-rings  and  other  ornaments.  Copper 
occurs  pure,  but  is  more  often  hardened  by  means  of  an 
alloy  of  tin,  whereby  it  becomes  bronze,  and  is  rendered 
suitable  for  implements  and  weapons.  Lead  is  rare,  oc- 
curring only  in  a  very  few  specimens.  *  *  *  Iron, 
as  already  observed,  is  extremely  uncommon;  and  when 
it  occurs,  is  chiefly  used  for  the  rings  and  bangles  which 
seem  to  have  been  among  the  favorite  adornments  of  the 
people.  Bronze  is,  however,  even  for  these  the  more 
common  material."  Tliese  ''Chaldeans"  are  probably 
neither  the  original  "smiths"  (from  Kal,  to  strike),  nor  an 
unmixed  race.  The  lack  of  silver  is  the  lack  of  money, 
ku-par.  The  physical  qualities  of  iron  were  by  them  no 
doubt  thought  magical  and  what  they  had  came  by  trade 
from  the  North,  perhaps. 

The  economic  hypnotizers  have  got  the  series  of  metals 
end  for  end  in  their  order  just  as  they  got  the  order  of 
evolution,  "hind  part  before." 

Trenholm  says: 

"Money  was  probably  at  the  very  first  used  only  as  a 
make-weight  in  bartering  and  trading;  the  'boot,'  as 
we  call  it  now.  It  may  be  imagined  that  when  bartering 
and  'trading'  became  close,  some  article  of  general  ac- 
ceptability was  added  to  the  less  valuable  of  the  two 
things  under  exchange,  so  as  to  equalize  the  values  re- 
ceived by  the  parties  to  the  barter.  Naturally  the  best  sub- 
stance for  this  would  be  one  in  general  use  and  easily 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  41 

divisible  without  loss  of  value,  and  also  of  rare  occurrence 
as  a  natural  product;  hence  salt,  an  article  of  universal 
consumption;  iron,  the  material  of  weapons;  copper,  the 
material  of  armor;  silver,  the  material  of  household  uten- 
sils, of  personal  ornament,  and  of  religious  vessels;  gold, 
the  material  of  royal  and  female  adornment,  came  into 
use  as  make-weights  or  'boot/  " 

Whatever  of  good  there  is  in  this  idea  he  spoils  by 
arranging  an  artificial  order  to  try  to  hide  the  facts  of 
the  natural  order.  There  is  hardly  room  to  doubt  that 
whilst  our  fathers  still  used  only  stone  weapons,  scorned 
armor,  or  had  never  heard  of  it,  fought  as  naked  as  the 
Dying  Gaul  (called  the  Dying  Gladiator),  and  had  not 
yet  seen  silver,  they  gave  their  surplus  gold  rings  as 
"boot,'^  as  the  incipient  medium  of  exchange.  Salt  would 
never  be  used  as  "boot"  in  general.  It  would  be  one  of  the 
principal  articles  of  trade  or  not  traded  at  all.  And  the 
race  was  old  in  the  use  of  gold,  as  every  free  man's  and 
woman^s  adornment  and  protective  amulet  before  the 
evolution  of  any  "royal"  office.  But  any  one  who  has 
traded  with  our  own  Indians  must  judge  that  the  habit 
of  giving  some  universally  desired  thing  as  "boot"  was 
not  the  earliest  form  of  trading.  It  may  have  come  in 
somewhere,  but  just  where  it  is  hard  to  say  with  any  cer- 
tainty. The  nearness  of  "price,"  French  prix,  and  "prize," 
rather  strengthens  the  "boot"  idea.  That  is,  prize  is  prop- 
erly a  gratuity  for  doing  what  one  ought  to  do  and  as  he 
ought  to  do  it:  a  race-horse  run  fast;  a  child  learn  its  les- 
son, etc.  Originally  the  "price"  might  have  been  an  addi- 
tional gratuity,  "thrown  in,"  and  as  it  was  jewelry  the 
name  might  stick  to  it  after  it  became  more  important 
than  the  thing  it  went  along  with  until  at  last  it  is  one  of 
the  two  objects  exchanged.  In  its  first  stage  as  "boot" 
it  need  not  be  a  thing  "easily  divisible  without  loss  of 


4S  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

value."  As  ''boot"  it  could  be  a  single  object.  As  money, 
the  common  medium  of  exchange,  it  must  be  divided. 

Tvenhol'm  says:  "It  was  probably  a  long  time  before 
this  primitive  stage  was  passed,  but  at  length  men  must 
have  perceived  that  if  money  could  stand  for  a  part  of 
the  value  of  a  thing,  it' could  stand  for  its  whole  value,  and 
thus  money  in  one  or  the  other  of  its  primitive  forms  came 
to  be  a  measure  of  value. 

"The  activity  of  traffic,  increasing  from  century  to  cen- 
tury, afforded  more  frequent  opportunities  and  more 
numerous  inducements  to  employ  money  advantageous- 
ly until,  amid  the  countless  industries  and  dealings  of  our 
day,  it  moves  in  a  million  circuits,  of  which  the  axes 
traverse  the  plane  of  society  in  every  direction,  and  cross 
each  other  at  a  thousand  points.  During  the  period  of 
this  development,  from  the  point  at  which  money  was  first 
thrown  in  as  'boot'  to  close  a  'trade,'  down  to  the  point 
at  which  we  now  find  it,  it  gradually  came  also  to  be  re- 
garded as  a  measure  of  value,  and  everywhere  history 
shows  a  progression  of  some  sort  as  to  the  substance  used 
for  money  considered  as  a  measure  of  value. 

"In  every  country,  and  in  every  race,  there  was  a  similar 
progression,  beginning  with  rude  materials  of  low  intrinsic 
value,  and  advancing  toward  finer  materials  of  higher 
intrinsic  value. 

"There  must,  therefore,  be  a  natural  law  governing  this 
progression;  a  natural  law  which  tends  always  to  estab- 
lish as  the  standard  of  value  the  material  of  highest  in- 
trinsic value  available  at  the  time.  If  there  is  such  a 
natural  law,  it  must  be  still  operative,  and  to  its  effect  we 
may  attribute  the  steadfast  movement  of  modern  nations 
toward  silver  as  the  general  standard  of  value,  when  cop- 
per ceased  to  be  adequate,  and  now  toward  gold,  when 
silver  is  no  longer  adequate." 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  43 

He  does  not  see,  or  care  to  tell,  that  the  first  "boot" 
was,  most  likely,  gold.  He  has  early  man  giving  first 
as  ''boot"  iron,  then  copper,  then  silver.  What  is  prob- 
ably the  last  metal  smelted  was  the  first  used  as  "boot," 
as  the  very  beginning  of  a  medium  of  exchange.  His 
order  of  the  evolution  of  money  is  made  to  order;  fiat 
is  the  basis  of  it  as  it  is  that  of  his  science  of  money.  It  has 
the  familiar  twang  of  the  street  fakir  putting  off  spurious 
goods  and  the  three-card-monte  sharp  cozening  the 
credulous. 

Benton  had  confidence  in  the  "instinctive  sagacity  of  the 
people,"  and  it  is  justified  in  the  fact  that  they  refuse  to 
believe  the  sophistries  of  those  who  plead  the  right  to 
plunder  them,  though  not  always  able  at  the  time  to  an- 
swer them.    They  are  not  hypnotizable  in  general. 

Contrary  to  these  quack-evolutionists  there  can  be  little 
doubt  that  gold  was  a  medium  of  exchange  before  silver 
was  known,  and  fairly  answered  the  purpose  for  some  of 
the  selling  that,  was  done ;  and  very  much  was  barter  at 
the  same  time  that  gold  was  so  used  and  before  silver 
was  smelted.  The  meaning  of  the  word  confirms  the  his- 
torical truth  that  the  continuity  of  gold  and  silver  in  their 
money  function  has  never  been  broken  from  the  begin- 
ning of  such  use  until  to-day.  The  local  use  of  other 
things  is  purely  exceptional  and  does  not  concern  the 
question  enough  to  merit  mention.  Silver  and  gold  money 
are  distinguished  from  the  iron  money  of  Sparta,  or  the 
iron  spikes  used  as  money  lately  in  Africa;  from  cop- 
per, from  leaden  bullets  in  Massachusetts  colony,  from 
tobacco  in  Virginia,  and  from  the  use  of  any  base  metal 
in  a  most  important  respect.  The  use  of  these  things 
as  money  rests  solely  on  their  utility,  for  they  do  not 
appeal  to  the  esthetic  or  the  superstitious  sense.*  Silver 
*  Iron  may  have  at  first  been  superstitiously  used  as  jewelry. 


44  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

was  not  the  metal  of  savages,  and  gold  could  not  answer' 
any  strictly  utilitarian  purposes  among  them;  only  mod- 
ern needs  and  inventiveness  b.-ought  them  out.  They  are 
therefore  superstition-money  and  luxury-money,  whilst 
the  other  things  were  necessity-money.  In  saying  that 
gold  and  silver  are  only  substances  and  only  commodities, 
it  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  they,  however,  like  jewels, 
have  what  Bacon  calls  ''feigned  values."  But  their  phys- 
ical nature  being  what  it  is,  and  the  quantity  being  limited 
by  nature  to  less  than  the  demand  for  them;  and 
man's  mind  being  what  it  is,  they  answer  needs  that  will 
always  exist;  and  hence  the  demand  for  them  will  always 
keep  up  their  exchangeable  value  whenever  this  second- 
ary or  medium-of-exchange  use  of  them  is  not  taken 
away  by  fiat,  whether  their  estimation  be  ''feigned"  and 
foolish  or  not.  I  stood  at  the  bottom  of  the  stairway  of 
the  office  of  the  Bankers'  Magazine  in  New  York,  talk- 
ing with  the  late  Geo.  M.  Weston,  author  of  "Money," 
and  he  spoke  of  gold  in  Bacon's  vein.  It  was  a  cold  day, 
and  in  a  climate  where  every  man's  coat  ought  in  com'mon 
sense  to  button  up  to  his  chin.  I  noted  that  he  wore  a 
coat  of  the  conventional  cut,  had  considerable  expanse  of 
shiit  front  and  gold  ornaments  in  the  linen.  I  could  not 
help  smiling  to  myself  at  the  philosopher  pooh-poohing 
the  "feigned  value"  of  gold  and  at  the  same  time  risking 
his  life  in  following  a  fashion  whose  end  was  an  esthetic 
use  of  gold.  And  if  I  mistake  not,  his  death,  which  came 
not  long  afterward,  was  of  pneumonia.  One  may  even 
think  it  superstitious  to  eat  fish  and  no  meat  on  Friday; 
but  if  he  would  have  the  best  fish  and  avoid  the  sorriest 
meat  of  the  whole  week's  market  he  must  bu}'-  fish  on  that 
day,  because  it  is  the  custom  of  two  religious  sects.  It 
makes  no  difference  what  is  the  cause  of  the  demand  for 
gold  and  silver  for  other  than  money  purposes,  the  fact 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  45 

of  the  demand,  and  the  physical  nature  of  these  metals 
makes  them  the  medium  of  exchange. 

Bonamy  Price  asks:  **How  was  the  farmer  who  had 
a  sheep  to  part  with,  to  find  a  tailor  who  would  give  him 
a  coat  for  it?"  Such  questions  are  teleological.  Scien- 
tists do  not  now  believe  that  ''cats  exist  in  order  to  kill 
mice,  but  they  exist  because  they  kill  mice."  Price  gives 
us  the  "go  to  now  let  us  make  a  medium  of  exchange" 
of  the  primitive  man  of  his  imagination,  who  elsewhere 
never  existed.  Mankind  did  not  design  money  as  the 
medium  of  exchange ;  it  became  such  from  its  fitness.  In 
the  times  when  the  folk  on  the  north  shores  of  the  Black 
Sea  had  live  stock  all  around,  and  when  the  yetten,  of 
giants,  our  ancestors  on  one  side  and  ancestors  of  the 
Russians,  came  down  from  the  Ural  Mountains  with  gold, 
then  sheep  and  coats  were  not  articles  of  exchange,  fof 
every  one  made  his  own  clothes,  or  his  woman  made  them 
for  him,  and  either  had  all  the  sheep  he  wanted  or  did 
not  want  any.  But  these  worshippers  of  the  god  of  the 
ring  (the  perfect  rainbow),  and  the  bow  or  arch  of  the 
sky,  took  off  the  gold  rings  from  their  arms  (amulets  of 
religion  and  ornaments  in  one)  and  brought  with  them 
the  products  of  a  civilization  unlike  their  own  from  the 
South.  These  rings  made  by  bending  or  bowing  rods, 
and  called  by  some  name  that  is  the  ancestor  of  our 
**bow,"  were  jewelry  and  the  medium  of  exchange.  No 
one  has  a  right  to  say  that  these  metals,  or  one  of  them, 
has  not  been  used  thus  ever  since  men  have  traded  wi4:h 
each  other.  As  rude  a  savage  as  any  savage  who  ever 
used  shells  may  also  have  used  gold.  Silver  was  probably 
not  used  until  men  learned  the  art  of  smelting.  Therefore 
there  is  no  warrant  for  putting  any  other  medium  of  ex- 
change earlier  than  one  of  these  metals  or  in  the  role  of 
its  ancestor.    The  other  mediums  were  used  then  just  as 


46  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

now — coevally  with  these  n;etals  somewhere  in  the  world. 
They  were  used  where  these  metals  could  not  be  had.    In 
the  widest  and  the  true  sense  the  human  race  has  had 
no  money  but  gold  and  silver.     The  experiments  and 
attempts,  the  fiat  money  schemes  like  that  of  Lycurgus 
with  iron,  do  not  count  for  anything,  but  only  make  it  the 
plainer  that  nature  has  given  us  nothing  that  ever  has 
been  money  truly,  or  that  she  ever  will  give  it  to  us,  except 
these  two  metals.    They  are  original  money,  not  developed 
out  of  the  use  of  skins  or  shells,  or  inferior  metals.  They 
are  old  Aryan  money,  and  our  forefathers  had  used  them 
already  long  when  others  had  hardly  yet  learned  to  use 
anything  as  a   medium  of  exhange.     And  when  men 
talk  about  the  various  things  in  the  world  that  have 
been  "money,"  they  show  that  historically  and  etymo- 
logically  they  do  not  know  what  they  are  talking  about. 
Men  look  on  the  case  of  money  in  the  world  as  all 
haphazard,  confusion,  and  as  without  method  or  order 
in  it;  as  a  medley  of  fiat  money  of  cows,  metals,  leather, 
pelts,  beads,  shells,  etc.,  etc.,  first  one  and  then  the  other; 
or  like  a  lot  of  actors  all  trying  to  play  the  same  role  on 
one  stage,  but  without  reference  to  each  other.    So  they 
will  continue  to  see  it  until  the  scientific  method  brings 
order  out  of  confused  'history  and  yet  more  confused  gen- 
eralization from  it.    No  matter  how  many  caricatures  of 
man,  or  attempts  at  man,  or  approaches  to  man  we  see 
in  nature,  we  only  find  one  human  species.    And  no  mat- 
ter how  many  attempts  at  finding  the  true  money  have 
been  made  by  men  they  have  only  been  found  once  in 
the  life  of  the  race — gold  and  silver. 

Moon  worship  probably  comes  later  than  sun  worship, 
and  is  the  outgrowth  of  higher  intelligence,  closer  observa- 
tion and  greater  respect  for  woman,  whose  function  is 
thought  to  be  presided  over  by  that  luminary  in  the  earlier 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  47 

days  of  the  race.  Its  rites  were  probably  never  cruel  as 
were  those  of  sun  worship  in  some  cases.  Even  as  re- 
ligious talismans  it  is  likely  that  the  use  of  silver,  when  it 
first  comes  into  such  use,  marks  a  higher  stage  of  intel- 
ligence than  when  gold  was  first  used  as  a  fetich.  Gold 
is  first  used  as  a  jewel  or  ornament,  a  talisman  of  super- 
stition and  an  incipient  medium  of  exchange;  but  silver, 
though  second  in  point  of  time  in  all  of  these  uses,  is  per- 
haps the  insignium  of  a  higher  civilization.  As  a  medium 
of  exchange  it  has  a  wider  range  of  usefulness  than  gold. 
Early  man  ornaments  his  body  before  he  thinks  of  cloth- 
ing it.  The  first  uses  of  these  metals  were  to  satisfy  the 
esthetic  and  superstitious  senses,  and  it  is  likely  that  gold 
was  extensively  used  in  this  way  before  men  wore  any 
clothing  at  all.  It  is  the  metal  of  the  lowest  barbarian  who 
knew  metal  from  stone,  and  who  found  it  ready  to  his 
hand.  Silver,  so  seldom  found  pure  in  nature,  was  per- 
haps only  made  after  the  art  of  smelting  was  learned. 
The  fact  that  the  Afghan  name  for  silver  is  "white  gold" 
goes  to  show  that  gold  was  the  earlier  known  in  that 
ancient  seat  of  Aryan  civilization. 

Mr.  Wells  talks  loftily  of  gold  as  the  only  money  that 
high  civilization  has  evolved.  For  fear  of  belonging  to  a 
low  civilization  his  readers  must  drop  silver  like  a  hot 
potato.  He  has  copied  Tyll  Owlglass,  who  told  the  frau- 
dulent nobleman  for  whom  he  pretended  to  be  painting 
ancestral  portraits,  that  to  persons  of  mean  birth  the  por- 
traits looked  like  blank  canvas.  The  history  of  the  metals 
brings  the  gravity  of  the  charlatan  into  high  relief. 

In  Guizot's  History  of  France  (Vol.  i,  p.  28,  Eng. 
Transl.)  he  quotes  Polybius  in  regard  to  the  five  Gallic 
invasions  of  Italy,  including  Kymric  and  Ligurian,  B.  C. 
587  to  621,  as  saying  that  the  invaders  "as  a  general  rule 
straggled  about  the  country,  sleeping  on  grass  or  straw, 


48  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

living  on  nothing  but  meat,  busying  themselves  about 
nothing  but  war  and  a  little  husbandry,  and  counting  as 
riches  nothing  but  flocks  and  gold,  the  only  goods  that 
can  be  carried  away  on  every  occasion."  In  saying  that 
"money  was  scarce  known  among  German  races  when 
the  Romans  first  knew  them,"  Ridpath,  of  course,  means 
coined  commercial  money. 

Persons  who  have  not  gone  to  the  bottom  of  the  an- 
cient religion  of  the  adoration  of  the  Creator  of  Life 
(miscalled  Phallic  Worship),  and  who  see  in  it  only  licen- 
tiousness as  a  cult,  have  refused  to  believe  the  meanings 
that  undoubtedly  attached  to  the  symbols  of  that  religion, 
as  that  the  cross  meant  the  male  and  our  famihar  horse- 
shoe the  female.  The  ear-rings  in  the  ears  of  the  kings  in 
"the  sculptures  from  the  buried  cities,  shaped  like  crosses 
or  hammers,  meant  piety  toward  the  Creator  of  Life.  The 
favorite  gods  of  the  Aryans  and  of  all  who  learned  from 
them  (as  the  Assyrians  and  earlier  aborigines  of  the 
Euphrates  basin),  were  gods  of  increase,  gods  of  life. 
Thus  it  seems  plain  that  the  reason  coinage  was  in  Juno's 
temple  and  not  in  one  dedicated  to  Mercury,  the  god  of 
trade,  or  Pluto,  the  god  of  riches,  was  that  trade  was 
originally  barter,  but  money  was  originally  the  jewels  that 
were  for  ornament  and  for  propitiation  of  the  gods  of  mar- 
riage, fertility  and  the  transmission  of  life,  and  were  not  yet 
differentiated  into  ornaments  on  one  side  and  a  com- 
modity as  the  common  medium  of  exchange  on  the  other. 

If  early  metal  money  was  stamped  with  the  image  of  a 
cow  or  sheep  the  evident  meaning  would  be:  "this  will  be 
taken  by  the  temple  priest  instead  of  the  animal  whose 
image  is  stamped  on  it  when  such  an  animal  is  due 
from  the  worshipper,"  Animals  were  offered  to  the  gods 
of  the  natural  increase  of  flocks.  This  is  a  good  reason 
why  the  metal  substitute  for  a  sacrificial  animal  came  to 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  49 

be  stamped  in  the  temple  of  Juno,  the  goddess  of  the 
fecundity  of  flocks.  Perhaps  pecunia  at  first  meant  pecus 
(genitive  pecudis),  an  animal,  and  una,  one.  The  stamped 
slug  or  metal  equalled  in  value  one  animal  of  the  kind 
impressed  on  it. 

Under  Numismatics  the  Britannica  tells  of  three  sets  of 
coins  stamped  with  the  images  of  the  three  symbolical 
animals  of  generative  vigor.  A  goat  was  on  Thracian 
coins,  a  boar  on  Lesbian  and  a  bull  on  the  coins  of  Sybaris 
after  it  was  made  an  Athenian  colony  under  the  name 
Thurium.  This  name  referred  to  the  bull.  Thor,  the 
Northern  god,  was  not  what  Grimm  so  labored  to  show — 
Thonar  or  Thunder.  It  was  the  same  word  as  Icelandic 
Thjor  (Th-yore)  a  bull.  Thunder  may  have  been  likened 
to  his  bellowing.  It  is  Latin  taurus.  Thor's  hammer  was 
a  decent  symbol  of  the  masculine  principle.  It  was  thrown 
into  the  lap  of  the  bride,  among  the  Northmen,  as  a  charm 
for  producing  fertility. 

Our  Skandinavian  forefathers  held  firmly  to  the  claim 
that  they  came  in  part  from  "gods,"  called  Asar,  Anses, 
Asja-men,  Asia-men,  etc.  The  name  Caucasus  is  still  a 
riddle.  It  may  be  made  up  of  a  word  like  German  hoch, 
or  Swedish  hog,  meaning  high,  or  the  kindred  form  still 
used  as  name  of  peaks  in  the  Caucasus,  Khokh;  Gum- 
aran  Khokh,  Adai  Kokh,  etc.,  thus  the  meaning  would  be 
'The  Mountains  of  the  Gods"  (that  is,  metal  workers  or 
fair-haired.)  Or  it  may  be  that  it  is  made  up  of  Khokh, 
and  kas,  meaning  giiss  or  gush,  that  is,  smelting  or  found- 
ing; and  the  last  syllable,  aes,  or  metal.  The  whole  would 
mean  "The  Mountains  of  the  Metal-smelters."  In  short, 
the  large  Smith  family  may  claim  them  as  "Smith's 
Range."     But  the  word  Asar  is  from  aes,  metal. 

The  presence  of  the  so-called  tribe  of  Ossetes  in  the  Cau- 
casus, speaking  an  xA.ryan  tongue  and  calling  themselves 


50  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

"Iron"  is  evidence  that  can  only  be  objected  to  on  the  score 
of  being  too  good.  It  will  probably  be  shown  that  our 
breed  were  highlanders,  fair-skinned,  fair-haired  and  red- 
haired;  bearing  cold  better  than  heat,  keeping  to  the  high- 
lands for  that  reason,  and  having  their  wits  sharpened  by 
having  to  f)rovide  against  cold  and  by  living  where  nature 
did  not  feed  them  without  exertion  on  their  part.  The 
dark-skinned,  black-eyed  and  black-haired,  who  stood 
heat  and  malaria  better,  could  live  in  the  hot,  moist  valleys 
to  the  south,  where  nature  gave  them  a  living  for  reaching 
out  the  hand  and  taking  it,  and  where  clothing  and  shelter 
were  not  needed.  Blonde  hair,  being  the  thickest  on  the 
head  and  the  finest,  shows  an  original  northern  habitat 
for  the  blonde  race.  The  blue  eye  is  the  snow  eye,  and 
it  goes  naturally  with  blonde  hair,  which  belongs  in  snow 
countries  for  the  same  reason  in  men  and  polar  bears. 

Large  and  fair,  with  hair  sometimes  almost  as  white  as 
the  moon  (compared  in  some  Norse  sagas  to  the  curling 
petals  of  the  lily)  or  red  or  yellow  like  the  sun,' and  eyes  as 
blue  as  the  sky,  it  would  not  be  strange  for  the  short,  dark 
people  all  in  the  lowlands  to  look  on  them  as  gods,  just  as 
the  Mexicans  looked  on  the  Castilian  invaders.  And  just 
as  the  latter  had  fire  to  fight  with,  so  the  early  Ayrans  had 
the  power  of  bringing  out  of  the  rocks  a  spark  like  the 
lightnings  of  heaven.  Ak,  Sanskrit,  rock,  and  Swedish 
gnista,  a  spark,  help  us  to  see  that  Agni  (Latin  ignis)  was 
at  first  the  'Vock-spark.""^  The  gypsies  who  have  done  the 
inestimable  service  of  keeping  some  of  the  rarest  bits  of  our 
old  Aryan  word-furniture,  show  the  pronunciation  by  their 
word  for  fire,  yag.  The  Russian  letters  e  and  ya  (yeh  and 
yah)  are  helpful  here,  too.  And  here,  perhaps,  we  see  in 
the  Greek  legend  of  Prometheus  who  stole  fire  from  heaven 

♦Upon  the  diphthongal-vowel  system  ak  would  sound  as  lak, 
or  just  what  a  child  now  says  in  trying  to  say  "rock;"  yock. 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  51 

and  was  tortured  in  the  Caucasus  by  the  gods,  the  corrup- 
tion of  a  name  that  in  Sanskrit  meant  ''pre-eminent  man," 
and  the  fact  of  learning  a  secret  that  the  Aryans  were 
keeping,  just  as  it  is  said  that  men  tried  to  learn  the  secret 
of  making  "Russia  iron"  by  getting  into  the  factories  as 
laborers. 

A  reason  additional  to  those  given  for  calling  them 
gods  might  be  that  they  came  down  from  the  mountains 
whence  windstorms  had  long  swept  down  on  the  men  of 
the  valleys;  and  whence  floods  and  freshets  came  sweeping 
away  lowland  villages,  all  of  which  were  believed  to  be  sent 
by  the  gods  who  lived  up  there.  If  this  is  true  it  followsthat 
the  wonderful  cult  of  Chaldea,  carried  over  the  world  by  the 
Phoenicians,  got  its  seed  from  our  race.  It  would  show 
that  Hannibal — ^Anu-baal — and  his  Carthaginians  were 
possibly  a. blended  race,  having  those  great  fair  "gods" 
for  fathers,  and  "daughters  of  men,"  dark  women  of  the 
south  for  mothers.  And  the  so-called  Semitic  Baby- 
lonians, here  supposed  to  be  mixed  Aryan-and-dark-race 
from  Western  Asia,  in  conquering  the  x\kkadians  perhaps 
found  some  of  their  brethren  on  the  Aryan  side,  but  whose 
Aryan  blood  came  from  a  more  easterly  direction;  or  it 
may  be  were  the  result  of  an  earlier  Aryan  wave  that  came 
down  into  the  Euphrates  valley.  Speaking  of  a  descrip- 
tion of  seven  evil  spirits,  in  his  Chaldean  Account  of  Gene- 
sis, p.  104,  George  Smith  says:  "Elsewhere  an  Akkadian 
hymn,  which  has  an  interlinear  Assyrian  translation  at- 
tached to  it,  speaks  as  follows :  *  *  *  'male  they  are 
not,  female  they  are  not.' "  And  he  adds,  "The  Akkadian 
text,  in  accordance  with  the  respect  paid  to  women  in 
Akkad  reverses  this  order."  Such  a  race  cannot  be  the 
same  as  the  Turanians.  Their  name  is  translated  "High- 
landers," and  they  are  said  to  have  come  from  the 
mountains  of  Elam  at  the  East  after  their  kinsfolk  settled 


52  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

in  Sumir  (the  Shinar  of  Genesis).  Ak  is  probably  Sans- 
krit, rock,  and  their  name  means  the  man  of  the  rocks,  or 
mountaineers. 

It  is  likely  that  in  the  city  of  the  moon-goddess  silver 
was  more  esteemed  for  religious  amulets  than  gold  was. 
Babylon  being  the  mother  of  civilization  in  Asia  (except 
as  to  her  sources)  this  would  have  given  silver  the  start  of 
gold  as  money,  so  to  speak.  The  remains  that  mention  the 
''black-headed  people,"  the  Akkadians,  imply  a  fair-haired 
race  that  could  only  have  been  Aryans.  It  is  almost  im- 
possible that  there  should  have  been  no  Aryan  blood  in 
Babylon.  From  Aryo-Babylonians  or  from  Aryans 
through  Babylon  might  have  come  to  Greece  the  jewelry- 
money  as  we  know  the  system  of  weights  to  have  come. 
The  ever-present  sense  of  superstition  and  the  never-absent 
love  of  ornamentation  joined  in  making  the  demand  for 
these  gold  and  silver  ornaments  and  amulets  a  perpetual 
and  universal  one  among  mankind  wherever  seen.  Later 
on  in  man's  history  came  the  utilitarian  uses  of  them, 
firmly  fixing  that  demand.  It  was  an  evolution  that 
ended  in  making  them  the  medium  of  exchange  before 
there  was  ever  legislation  on  the  subject  of  money,  or  per- 
haps on  any  other  subject.  Instead  of  the  white  race  com- 
ing from  dark  Hindoos,  the  latter  are  to  the  former  about 
as  the  half-white  Cherokees  are  to  the  Americans.  The 
short,  dark  men  of  the  lowlands  were  easily  beaten  by  the 
great  highlanders  brought  up  in  difficult  surroundings, 
and  migrating,  as  they  always  seem  to  have  done,  in  war 
parties  of  men  without  women.  But  in  turn  the  dark, 
voluptuous  women  of  the  hot  valleys  of  the  South  con- 
quered the  large,  fair  men.  This  may  be  what  is  meant 
by  the  Skandinavian  tradition  of  descent  from  Asar  or 
gods,  and  Yngvi  or  men,  as  well  as  the  statement  in  Gene- 
sis that  the  sons  of  God  saw  the  daughters  of  men  that  they 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  53 

were  fair  and  took  wives  of  them.  Out  of  such  blendings 
came  perhaps  the  Babylonian  and  Chaldean  civilizations 
that  spread  to  Greece,  to  Rome,  and  thus  to  all  the  world. 
In  genial  and  not  too  enervating  climes  our  breed  brought 
forth  a  civilization  that  passed  westward  by  the  southern 
route  to  Europe,  and  there  it  met  kindred  blood  that  had 
traveled  by  the  northern  route  where  cold  and  less  favor- 
able conditions  had  kept  it  back  in  the  arts  and  poHshings. 
European  civilization  is  referred  to  Rome;  she  got  hers 
partly  from  Greece,  and  Greece  got  hers  in  part  from  the 
valley  of  the  Euphrates.  Is  it  not  illogical  to  say  that  the 
Aryans  got  their  civilization  entirely  from  the  Semites  or 
Turanians?  To  say  that  tlie  race  that  is  the  higher  by  the 
supreme  test  of  quality  of  mind  got  its  start,  was  first 
taught,  by  the  races  that  are  lower  by  the  same  test,  is  not 
reasonable.  Hence,  as  our  civilization  can  be  traced,  in 
part  at  least,  to  Babylon,  and  the  higher  mind  does  not 
rise  by  the  help  of  the  lower,  Babylonia  and  Chaldea 
must  have  been  partly  peopled  with  men  of  Aryan  blood. 
Notwithstanding  the  spurt  made  by  Penka  and  others  in 
trying  to  overthrow  Max  Mueller's  idea  that  the  home  cf 
the  Aryans  must  be  looked  for  "somewhere  in  Asia,"  and 
trying  to  find  it  in  Europe,  we  seem  now  to  be  on  the  home 
stretch  with  Max  Mueller's  theory  far  in  the  lead.  Geol- 
ogy and  the  vast  antiquity  of  the  human  race  seem  to  de- 
mand that  the  Pamir  and  the  valleys  on  the  south  side  of 
it,  the  Caucasus  and  its  valleys,  be  taken  as  the  first  home 
of  our  white  race ;  thus  agreeing  roughly  with  that  ancient, 
invaluable  and  misunderstood  tradition  of  Genesis,  found 
in  ruder  and  older  form  in  Babylon.  There  must  be  a 
more  nearly  complete  geological  record  before  we  can  pass 
on  the  probability  of  the  Ural  Mountains  being  the  first 
Aryan  home.    The  first  syllable  may  be  connected  with 


54  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

or,  meaning  light,  hence  gold,  i.  e.,  bright;  or  it  may  refer 
to  bright  or  red  hair  of  the  people. 

Loth  to  go  further  to  the  side  before  getting  back  to 
the  modern  points  of  the  subject,  clearness  seems  to  re- 
quire it.  In  Sanskrit  the  words  sama  and  dhma,  the  first 
being  our  "same"  and  the  latter  "to  blow;  to  excite  fire 
by  blowing;  to  melt";  seem  to  carry  the  idea  of  blowing  as 
with  a  bellows  and  melting  bits  of  metal  into  sameness. 
They  seem  to  be  the  Sanskrit  form  of  the  German 
Schmieden,  to  forge;  schmidt,  schmid,  smith;  Dutch, 
smijdigen,  to  soften;  smid,  a  smith;  Danish,  smed  (noun); 
smede  (verb);  Swedish,  smida;  New  Icelandic,  smithr, 
(noun);  Old  Norse,  smitha;  Middle  High  German,  smiden 
(verb);  Old  High  German,  smidon,  smida;  Gothic,  smitha 
(noun),  smithen  (verb).  Smite  is  of  the  same  stock  of 
words.  Also  our  word  "smelt,"  from  which  melt;  Danish, 
smelte,  to  liquefy,  melt;  Dutch,  smelten,  same;  Swedish, 
smalta,  to  melt,  to  smelt;  German,  schmelzen,  to  melt,  to 
smelt  (schmalz,  lard) ;  Middle  High  German,  smelzen ;  Old 
High  German,  same,  to  liquefy.  An  old  form,  smeldt, 
might  have  been  made  into  smelt,  melt  and  smed,  all 
three.  The  words  smith  and  smelting  being  Aryan,  the 
art  no  doubt  is,  too.  If  our  fathers  had  learned  the  art 
from  Semites  or  Turanians  they  would  liave  had  the  name 
from  them  too.  "Silver,"  probably  the  first  metal  smelted, 
may  be  the  same  as  Latin  solvere,  our  "dissolve."  Latin 
solvere,  to  dissolve,  is  thus  akin  to  old  Swedish  solver, 
silver.  As  said  above,  in  Sanskrit,  salila,  water;  and 
bhu,  to  be,  to  become,  we  probably  have  the  original  or  the 
earliest  form  that  we  can  now  find  of  silver,"  Gothic 
silubr.  Silver  when  molten  becomes  as  white  and  trans- 
parent as  water. 

From   both   words,  silver   and  argenteum,    philology 
gives  its  sanction  to  the  theory  that  silver  was  never  the 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  55 

metal  of  the  rudest  savages,  but  was  the  first  metal  used  by 
man  when  far  enough  advanced  to  practice  smelting. 

The  use  of  all  this  search  is  this:  it  teaches  that  the 
world^s  civilization  is  Aryan.  It  is  ours.  Money,  its  great- 
est factor,  is  an  Aryan  evolution.  Strong  arms,  brave 
hearts  and  good  brains  had  they  who  scaled  mountains 
and  got  gold  and  silver  from  the  earth.  As  the  snow 
up  in  the  mountains  by  melting  and  running  down  into 
the  valleys  causes  the  earth  to  bring  forth  its  increase  and 
makes  navigable  rivers  for  carrying  it,  so  the  white  race 
has  come  down  on  all  sides,  perhaps,  of  the  high  land  of 
Asiaand  brought  the  germs  of  civilization.  Wherever  there 
has  been  civilization  there  has  probably  been  Aryan  blood. 
Where  it  has  declined,  as  in  Greece,  Italy,  Spain,  it  may 
be  only  a  denudation,  so  to  speak,  of  the  later  or  upper 
layers  of  Aryan  humanity,  thus  leaving  exposed  the  strata 
of  the  more  nearly  full-blood  stock  of  the  original  small, 
dark  peoples  whom  the  large,  fair  Aryans  long  before 
overcame.  As  civilization  is  ours,  as  our  race  gave  it  to 
the  world,  let  us  defend  and  perfect  it!  As  we  could  not 
have  made  of  our  civilization  what  we  have  but  for  the 
use  of  a  medium. of  exchange,  there  is  no  more  important 
question  in  the  economic  branch  of  sociology  than  the 
money  question.  There  is  no  other  that  as  strongly  ap- 
peals to  our  pride  and  duty  as  the  nation  that  is  in  the 
lead  of  the  great  white  race.  Those  financial  writers  who 
have  come  out  of  the  ''Greenback"  fiat  school  are  right 
in  calling  the  basis  of  the  estimation  of  these  metals  super- 
stitious. But  the  vast  amount  of  contracts  for  payment  of 
deferred  obligations  in  them  now  helps  to  clamp  and 
fasten  the  demand  and  price.  These  two  metals  were 
money  and  performed  the  office  that  legal  tender  money 
now  performs  for  thousands  of  years  before  there  was 
a   statute   on   the    subject.     Money,   then,   is   not   the 


56  I'ttfi  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

creature  of  statute  law.  Legislation  only  ratified  and  con- 
firmed what  it  found;  confirmed  the  rights  that  it  found 
men  in  possession  of.  It  might  be  said  that  legislation 
confirmed  the  de  facto  money  of  the  world  as  its  money 
de  jure. 

The  ancient  mani,  baugr,  pengr,  dis-eikon,  or  disks, 
the  jewelry-money,  have  differentiated  into  jewelr)^  and 
coin,  the  medium  of  exchange,  but  the  lateral  communica- 
tion, the  turning  of  one  into  the  other,  has  never  been 
broken  by  the  voluntary  consent  of  any  free  people  or  by 
their  custom  law.  It  has  been  done  in  some  countries  by 
force  and  in  others,  as  our  own,  by  fraud.  Three-fourths 
to  four-fifths  of  the  whole  quantity  of  the  two  money 
metals  used  is  used  for  ornaments  and  the  utilities;  one- 
fifth  to  one-fourth  as  the  medium  of  exchange.  When 
did  mankind  lose  their  right  to  use  these  metals  for  either 
purpose  in  volume  limited  only  by  nature's  generosity 
and  their  own  industry?  We  have  perhaps  first  a  fetich, 
then  amulets  and  ornaments  blended,  which  become  the 
medium  of  exchange.  Then  private  coinage,  then  the 
duty  of  coining  put  upon  the  state  for  the  convenience  of 
all.  Then  begins  usurpation ;  governments  refuse  to  per- 
form the  duty  of  coining  put  upon  them,  and  refuse  to  let 
the  individuals  resume  the  exercise  of  the  rights  that  they 
placed  in  the  hands  of  the  government.  The  definition 
of  the  word  alone  throws  the  burden  upon  the  American 
followers  of  the  neo-English  school  of  limiters-by-fiat  to 
show  a  right  in  any  government  to  paternally  limit  the 
volume  of  the  part  of  these  metals  used  as  money  any 
more  than  the  part  used  as  jewelr>'.  In  the  days  and 
localities  of  supposed  cow-money — pecus — could  any  gov- 
ernment have  justly  exercised  the  power  to  limit  the 
amount  of  stock  bred  and  reared?  If  for  any  reason  men 
were  to  use  pecus,  or  cow-money,  again,  would  the  state 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  5? 

have  the  right  to  limit  the  number  bred,  or  to  brand  a 
certain  number  which  could  only  be  such  cow-money? 
That  is  exactly  what  governments  are  now  doing  with  the 
money  metals.  It  is  as  if  all  "buckskin"  cattle  were  made 
money  by  fiat,  or  their  money  quality  protected  and  en- 
forced by  it;  whilst  white  cattle  were  made  legal  tender 
for  limited  amounts. 

Sir  John  Lubbock  is  always  interesting  when  writing 
on  savages,  primitive  man  and  the  origin  of  civilization. 
The  American  limiters-by-fiat  have  called  him  in  to  help 
them  (N.  A.  Review,  September,  1893.)  Let  him  answer 
this:  Did  primitive  man  originally,  or  any  men  before 
the  evolution  of  governments,  have  the  right  to  use  gold 
and  silver  without  Hmit,  as  the  medium  of  exchange?  If 
so  at  what  point  in  civilization  does  man  lose  it  and  by 
what  right  is  it  taken  from  him?  Lubbock  treats  it  as 
purely  a  question  of  expediency,  "but  it  is  not.  It  is  a  ques- 
tion of  human  rights.  He  mildly  tells  our  economic 
Anglo-maniacs  of  the  Northeast  that  he  thinks  they  pay 
too  much  attention  to  what  England  does  in  the  matter; 
like  a  mother  telling  babes  not  to  hold  to  her  skirts,  but  to 
try  to  walk  alone.  It  shows  also  that  Sir  John  Lubbock, 
the  evolutionist,  who  throws  the  "carpenter  theory"  away 
in  all  other  branches  of  science,  dusts  it  oflf  and  uses  it 
in  the  science  of  money. 

Many  a  reader  has  already  seen  the  corollary  from  this 
chapter.  When  legislatures  claim  the  power  to  limit  the 
use  of  either  of  the  two  money  metals  as  the  medium  of 
exchange,  let  us  show  them  the  following  diagram  and 
ask  them  to  give,  within  a  century,  the  time  when  man 
lost  his  right  to  use  as  much  or  as  little  as  he  may  wish  of 
these  two  metals  for  any  purpose  for  which  custom  has 
brought  them  to  be  used,  and  the  power  under  which  he 
lost  it,  and  by  what  right  it  was  taken  away. 


g^ 


THE  PINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


Spangen         ^^       ^ 
Baug                ^^ 
\     Manl 

Disks                   ^"^-v^ 

Jewelry  as        ' 

Ornaments, 

Amulets  and 

Incipient 

Exchange 

Medium. 

National  Coinage. 


None  of  the  constitutional  coinage  leaders  in  the  United 
States  have  ever  seen  the  main  truths  of  the  science  of 
money,  and  so  have,  in  all  their  brave  fighting,  been  at  a 
tremendous  disadvantage.  For  instance,  they  all  think 
that  "money  is  the  creature  of  law";  "law  alone  makes 
money."  (They  had  better  say  "money  makes  law.")  This 
is  contrary  to  the  first  of  the  principles  of  the  science  of 
money:  money  is  not  made,  it  is  found;  it  was  not  made 
the  common  medium  of  exchange  by  legislation,  it  be- 
came so  by  evolution.    Statute  only  recognized  that  fact. 

Whilst  it  is  unquestionably  true  that  we  have  herein  the 
evolution  of  money  and  the  corollary  above  follows,  it 
would  not  give  fiatism  any  rights  even  had  money  never 
been  used  except  as  issuing  from  "the  sovereign  power," 
king  or  government.  If  a  certain  race  had  never  been 
freemen,  but  from  their  evolution  as  men  always  slaves, 
it  would  not  give  them  now  any  less  right  to  freedom. 

When  W.  L.  Trenholm,  a  writer  on  "The  People's 
Money,"  gives  space  to  chapters  on  "The  Basis  of  Money," 
as  he  has  done,  it  is  clear  that  he  has  not  learned  the  first 
principles  of  the  financial  philosophy.  Even  Wells  says 
all  true  money  is  a  commodity. 

This  chapter  alone  wins  the  battle  for  us  and  over- 
throws'gold  basis  fiatism.  There  is  but  one  possible  posi- 
tion for  them  to  fall  back  upon,  and  they  will  eagerly 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  59 

try  to  hold  that.  Having  by  fiat,  backed  by  force,  inter- 
fered to  confuse  the  natural  ratio  between  the  two  money 
metals,  they  say  such  confusion  is  natural  and  inevitable. 
Later  on  they  will  be  dislodged  from  this  position. 


60  THE3  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

CHAPTER  II. 
DEFINITIONS. 

"Define  your  terms,"  said  Voltaire.  In  defining  them 
we  ought  to  get  ancient  as  well  as  modern  definitions,  so 
as  to  know  the  value  given  to  the  various  terms  by  Tur- 
got,  Locke  and  others  a  century  or  two  ago,  and  com- 
pare them  with  the  meanings  given  them  now;  and  also 
trace  the  words  to  their  roots  and  germs  when  we  can. 

Value. — Bailey's  dictionary  of  the  eighteenth  century 
gives  "value"  as  from  French  valeur,  Latin  valor,  and 
gives  the  verb  as  meaning  to  set  a  price  upon,  to  esteem. 
Ash's  Dictionary  of  1775  gives  value  from  Latin  valor, 
price,  worth,  a  rate,  a  high  rate.  The  Latin  verb  is  valeo, 
and  its  first  sense  is  to  be  strong  physically.  It  is  com- 
pared to  Sanskrit  bala,  force,  and  German  walten,  to  rule. 
It  was  used  in  the  sense  of  "to  excel  in  something,  to 
have  influence."  Benfey  gives  the  Sanskrit  verb  bal,  to 
live;  balaya,  to  nourish;  balaya,  to  live.  (Balaka  is,  in 
Sanskrit,  a  boy.)  It  may  have  meant  masculinity.  The 
foundational  or  first  meaning  of  the  English  word  value, 
the  one  that  comes  home  to  us  most  nearly,  is  usefulness 
to  human  life;  shortly,  utility.  This  answers  to  the  San- 
skrit meaning  to  nourish.  In  the  narrowest  sense  it  only 
applies  to  food.  Of  all  things  that  the  human  animal 
exerts  himself  to  get,  food  only  is  absolutely  necessary 
to  his  life.  He  has  lived  without  shelter  of  his  own  mak- 
ing, and  without  clothes;  but  solid  and  liquid  food  he 
must  have,  or  cease  to  be.  And  he  must  get  them,  must 
go  to  them ;  they  will  not  come  to  him  as  air  does.  Value 
is  akin  to  "avail."    It  avails;  has  some  influence. 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  61 

The  Usual  Meaning  in  Financial  Discussions. — But  the 
restricted  meaning  of  useful  to  human  life  primarily  is  not 
the  meaning  of  the  word  value  in  finance.  It  means  there- 
in exchangeable  value,  of  which  selling  is  the  test.  Mill 
says  it  means  exchangeability.  Value  is  usefulness  in 
one  sense  and  price  in  another.  Norman  (p.  9)  quotes 
from  Miss  Sharland's  "Coin  of  the  Realm"  that  price  and 
value  are  not  the  same,  and  injects  the  term  ''cost  value." 
This  only  complicates  and  is  no  gain,  for  "cost"  tells  all 
that  ''cost  value"  does.  Market  value,  price  or  exchange- 
ability is  based  on  the  real  or  supposed  usefulness  to  the 
buyer.  Even  means  of  destroying  life  are  really  or 
thought  to  be  useful  to  those  who  buy  them  to  use  against 
others.  Exchangeability  comes  from  supposed  utility.  In 
financial  discussions  "value"  when  used  without  qualifica- 
tion or  not  plainly  in  another  sense,  usually  means  no 
more  than  "price";  the  money  that  something  will  fetch 
when  sold.  When  we  say  anything  sells  "below  its  value" 
it  has  still  another  meaning,  and  one  that  does  not  con- 
cern elementary  definitions  in  political  economy.  We 
m.ean  that  its  price  is  not  as  high  as  for  some  reason  we 
think  it  ought  to  be,  as  that  it  cost  more  to  produce  than 
it  is  selling  for,  or  some  other  incongruity. 

Sumner  says  in  a  letter  to  Norman,  which  the  latter 
quotes  (p.  17),  "If  legislation  can  affect  value,  all  the  text 
books  of  political  economy  are  very  faulty  in  their  an- 
alysis of  value."  If  value  means  exchangeability  legisla- 
tion, backed  by  force,  can  certainly  give  and  can  take 
away  value,  can  add  to  or  take  from  market  price.  We 
have  seen  it  raise  the  price  of  nickel  and  lower  that  of 
silver.  But  in  the  true  sense*  of  the  word  value  is  only 
shown  by  market  price  under  natural  supply  and  demand. 

*  We  speak  of  knowing,  but  Spencer  says  in  the  "true  sense" 
of  knowing  we  do  not  know  what  we  continually  speak  of 
knowing. 


62  THIS  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

Sumner  is  a  free  trader.  Free  traders  are  against  pro- 
tective tariffs,  among  other  reasons  because  they  affect 
the  value,  exchangeabiHty,  price,  of  commodities.  Tren- 
holm  says: 

'The  whole  function  of  government,  with  respect  to 
■money,  is  limited,  first,  to  establishing  by  law  what  shall 
constitute  the  general  medium  of  exchange,  measure  of 
value  and  legal  tender  for  debt  and  public  dues;  and, 
secondly,  to  protecting  this  money  from  variations  in 
value  one  way  or  the  other." 

This  is  excellent  Greenback  and  Populist  doctrine.  But 
the  last  sentence  is  embarrassing  to  his  brother  fiatist, 
Sumner,  who  thinks  congressional  legislation  can  not 
affect  value. 

A  gold-fiatist  in  the  Journal  of  Agriculture,  St.  Louis, 
said:  "To  summarize,  people  cannot  create  something 
out  of  nothing."    I  answered: 

"I  am  happy  to  echo  that  truth.  It  is  a  pity  everybody 
does  not  keep  it  in  mind.  The  rise  in  the  worth  of  bonds 
and  debts  is  not  a  creation  out  of  nothing.  It  is  a  transfer 
of  the  value  from  the  pockets  of  the  owners  of  products  to 
those  of  the  owners  of  debts — by  a  violation  of  the  eighth 
commandment  concealed  under  forms  of  law. 

"We  know  that  value  cannot  be  created  by  acts  of  Con- 
gress, and  hence  when  we  see  412J  grains  of  coined  silver 
worth  100  cents  and  41 2J  grains  of  bullion  worth  a  little 
over  half  as  much,  we  know  with  absolute  certainty  that 
the  bullion  has  been  robbed  of  its  value,  and  not  that 
the  value  has  been  created  in  the  coin."    (April,  1895.) 

Gold-basis  fiatism  found  men  digging  silver  that  was 
worth  as  much  in  the  form  of  bullion  as  when  coined. 
It  robbed  them  of  the  natural  right  to  coin  the  bullion  and 
use  it  as  money,  and  its  value  at  once  fell  and  continued 
to  fall.    Then  when  the  producers  of  it  saw  that  it  was 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  63 

demonetization,  that  by  cutting  off  one  of  the  uses  of 
silver  had  lowered  its  market  value,  they  demanded 
the  return  of  their  natural  right.  One  of  the  grounds  on 
which  gold  fiatists  refuse  to  give  back  the  right  is  that  it 
would  restore  to  producers  of  silver  what  gold  fiatism  has 
taken  from  them.  The  potential  value  of  silver  is  no  less 
now  than  before  its  owners  were  immorally  deprived  of  a 
part  of  its  actual  value.  It  is  like  a  spring  that  is  pressed 
down.  Take  off  the  pressure  and  it  will  at  once  go  to  its 
normal  position.  Later  on  a  quotation  from  Norman  will 
be  given  in  proof. 

B. 

"Intrinsic  Value." — As  value  means  exchangeability  or 
market  price,  what  do  men  mean  by  ''intrinsic  value"? 
The  present  President  of  the  United  States  seems  to  think 
that  intrinsic  means  unvarying,  and  applies  it  so  to  gold. 
There  is  no  value-constant.  Everything  varies  in  its  pur- 
chasing power.  If  one  means  by  ''intrinsic  value"  that 
the  thing  is  desirable  in  itself  and  has  exchangeability  or 
a  market  price  because  its  physical  qualities  answer 
human  needs  and  only  uses  it  to  distinguish  it  frohi  the 
promise  of  such  a  thing — it  is  not  misleading  or  objection- 
able. But  those  who  speak  of  the  "intrinsic  value"  of  a 
gold  coin  and  mean  that  its  exchangeable  value  is  unvary- 
ing, mislead,  and  are  either  ignorant  or  think  those  whom 
they  address  are  ignorant.  Nothing  is  inherently  ex- 
changeable. The  cause  why  anything  is  exchangeable  is 
in  man,  who  desires  it;  not  alone  in  the  thing:  just  as 
the  noise  of  an  explosion  is  in  the  ears  that  hear  it,  and 
where  there  are  no  ears  there  is  no  noise,  only  a  motion 
of  the  air.  (Or,  to  be  exact,  perhaps  we  should  say  the 
noise  is  in  the  brain  and  nerves.) 

If  there  were  no  men  to  want  and  use  ^old  it  would 


64  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

not  be  exchangeable,  which  is  the  same  as  saying  that  it 
would  have  no  value.  It  is  intrinsically,  inherently,  un- 
varyingly of  a  certain  specific  gravity  at  or  near  sea  level ; 
but  as  any  one  can  see  who  knows  that  its  value  fluctu- 
ates, being  sometimes  greater  and  sometimes  less,  its 
"intrinsic  value"  is  not  always  the  same.  In  this  sense 
it  is  not  different  from  silver.  The  word  is  probably  made 
up  of  three  Latin  words;  in,  in  or  upon;  trans,  across; 
and  secare,  to  cut.  Or  if  from  inter,  within,  and  insecare, 
to  cut  upon,  meaning  a  mark  cut  upon  anything  interior- 
ly or  on  the  inside,  makes  a  stronger  idea;  i.  e.,  away 
from  outside  abrasion.  Originally,  perhaps,  it  meant 
deeply  cut  into  a  wooden  object  across  the  grain.  Now 
it  means  within,  unchangeable  and  inseparable  from,  as 
it  was  originally  intended  to.  But  gold's  value  (price,  pur- 
chasing power,  exchangeability)  is  neither  unchangeable 
nor  inseparable  from  it.  It  loses  it  in  part  from  circum- 
stances, and  it  is  coticeivable  that  it  might  lose  it  entirely 
and  forever. 


"Unit  of  Value." — The  first  coinage- law  of  the  United 
States,  April  2,  1792,  says  nothing  about  a  "unit  of  value." 
It  mentions  money  as  something  already  in  existence  and 
understood,  and  names  the  coined  quantity  of  371 J  grains 
pure  silver  or  416  grains  of  standard  silver  as  "the  unit 
of  money."  The  law  of  February,  1873,  says  the  gold 
dollar  of  25  8-10  grains  is  the  "unit  of  value."  The  unit 
of  any  mass  must  be  of  the  same  nature  as  the  mass  of 
which  it  is  the  unit.  It  is  a  part  of  the  mass.  A  second 
is  time  and  the  unit  of  time.  A  dollar  is  money  and  the 
unit  of  money.  The  material  of  which  a  foot-rule  is  com- 
posed is  not  the  unit  of  length ;  it  is  the  distance  between 
its  two  ends  (which  is  length)  that  is  the  unit  of  length. 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  65 

The  material  could  be  ground  into  wood-pulp  and  rolled 
into  a  ball,  or  if  of  metal  could  by  extreme  heat  be  made 
into  a  gas.  Money  is  not  value  and  hence  cannot  be  the 
unit  of  value.  It  has  value  (exchangeability),  but  it  might 
lose  it,  and  a  coin  still  be  the  unit,  by  weight,  of  the  mass 
of  its  kind  of  metal.  When  the  Central  America  was 
about  to  sink  the  cabin  was  strewed  with  heaps  of  glit- 
tering gold  that  had  lost  its  value.  Such  might  be  the 
case  with  all  gold  in  conceivable  cases.  The  unit  of  value 
must  be  value;  but  as  value  is  force,  not  matter,  as  ex- 
changeability is  a  quality  or  ability  or  powder  of  a  thing 
and  not  a  thing,  its  unit  can  not  be  a  thing.  No  coin  can 
be  "the  unit  of  value."  To  call  it  such  is  putting  a  coin 
in  the  same  general  class  as  volts  of  electricity  instead 
of  in  the  class  with  the  material  electrified.  Electricity 
is  force,  not  matter;  it  is  an  action  of  matter.  To  call  a 
coin  the  unit  of  value  is  making  a  thing  the  unit  of  force. 
We  can  apprehend  or  comprehend  things  and  their  ac- 
tions, matter  and  force.  But  we  can  not  take  a  thing 
as  the  unit  of  force  nor  a  quantity  of  force  as  the  unit  of 
any  body  of  matter.  The  unit,  from  unus,  one,  is  one  of  a 
lot  of  the  same  sort  as  itself  (in  some  sense  of  sameness.) 
To  call  a  coin  the  unit  of  value  is  like  calling  a  certain  race- 
horse the  unit  of  speed. 

In  fixing  a  unit  of  time  and  a  unit  of  length  we  began 
with  natural  periods — ^the  sun's  and  moon's  periods — and 
subdivided  them  down  to  a  very  small  one  taken  as  the 
unit.  Our  fathers  took  the  distance  between  the  heel  and 
the  toe,' or  between  the  two  sides  of  the  thumb  at  the  first 
joint,  as  the  unit  of  length.  In  the  metric  system  a  quad- 
rant of  the  earth  through  Paris  is  subdivided  down  to  the 
unit.  In  the  law  of  1792  Congress  adopted  the  Spanish 
milled  dollar  as  its  model  or  rule  (Latin  regula),  and 


66  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

coined  one  of  the  same  value  differing  only  in  the  devices 
on  it* 

To  try  to  get  out  of  the  absurd  position  of  passing  an 
act  in  which  a  thing  is  made  the  unit  of  force  or  quality, 
gold-fiatists  must  say  that  they  mean  by  calling  a  gold 
dollar  the  "unit  of  value"  that  it  is  the  unit  of  "values," 
valuable  (that  is,  exchangeable)  things ;  that  the  coin  is  the 
unit  of  the  mass  of  cows,  bonds,  sawmills,  faces,  etc.,  etc., 
taken  together.  Or  that  it  means  that  the  dollar's  value  is 
the  unit  of  the  entire  volume  of  value  in  the  entire  mass 
of  exchangeable  things  and  actions.  If  this  was  what  they 
meant  they  ought  to  have  said  it,  and  put  it  so  in  the  law. 
But  the  latter  position  leaves  them  no  better  off.  It  is 
merely  saying  that  the  value  of  this  coin  (which  varies 
from  many  causes  and  constantly),  whether  the  value  be 
great  or  small,  is  the  unit  of  the  value  of  the  other  things 
which  are  also  varying  in  value  from  many  causes  and 
constantly.  This  value-unit  is  sometimes  more  and  some- 
times less  valuable,  and  is  thus  comparable  only  to  such 
"yard-sticks"  as  sometimes  have  thirty-six  inches  in  them, 
sometimes  more,  sometim.es  less.  This  is  like  making  all 
ships  at  sea  guide  their  course  from  some  one  ship  (that 
like  themselves  is  always  moving),  no  matter  where  it  is, 
and  pretending  that  it  does  not  move. 

Compared  to  other  silver  coins,  the  value  of  the  Span- 
ish dollar  depended  on  the  quantity  of  pure  silver  in  it 
(and  in  the  first  part  of  this  work  we  saw  what  gives  silver 
its  value.)  This  quest  would  lead  us  back  to  a  grain  as  the 
beginning,  and  it  was  a  natural  object,  and  shows  that  the 

*  It  thus  exercised  its  constitutional  power  to  "regulate  the 
value"  of  the  money  that  it  coined,  although  Prof.  Sumner  says 
in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Norman  (p.  17)  that  "congress  cannot  regulate 
the  value  of  a  coin  (any)  more  than  it  can  regulate  a  physical 
object  to  make  it  longer  or  shorter  than  it  is."  It  regulates 
th^  vajue  of  foreign  coins  in  the  same  way  and  sense. 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  67 

unit  of  money  is  a  unit  of  weight  at  last,  and  not  a  unit 
of  value.  Its  weight  does  not  change;  its  value  does, 
with  respect  to  everything  else;  and  when  the  number  of 
units  changes,  the  value  of  each  unit  becomes  different 
from  its  value  before  the  change. 

Is  it  possible  to  determine  the  "unit  of  value,"  to  fix  a 
unit  of  exchangeability?  So  far  as  truth  in  writing  the 
money  science  comes  in  contact  with  justice  in  the  prac- 
tice of  coinage  by  governments  and  use  by  men  in  ex- 
changing, it  makes  not  the  slightest  difference  whether  it 
is  possible  or  not.  Congress  must  leave  money's  pur- 
chasing power  with  nature  and  with  man  in  the  exercise 
of  his  natural  rights.  In  the  sense  of  "regulating"  the 
value  equivalent  to  increasing  or  diminishing  money's 
purchasing  power,  Congress  has  no  powers.  When  it 
makes  what  is  called  an  "honest  dollar^'  in  the  language 
of  the  advocates  of  (Long  Island)  "sound  finance,"  i.  e., 
increases  its  purchasing  power  by  legislating  part  of  the 
money  out  of  its  function,  it  takes  the  property  of  debtors 
and  gives  it  to  creditors  without  compensation.  The 
power  to  choose  the  unit  of  money,  or  to  coin  money,  is 
not  the  power  to  reduce  the  volume  of  money  nor  other- 
wise tamper  with  its  purchasing  power. 

It  is  incredible  that  the  States  and  the  people  intended 
to  give  Congress  the  power  to  increase  or  diminish  the 
purchasing  power  of  money  (and  thus  the  power  to  direct- 
ly affect  all  prices),  in  giving  the  power  to  "regulate  the 
value"  of  money.  They  cannot  give  such  power  justly. 
Congress  found  "money"  already  in  existence.  Naming 
the  quantity  of  it  to  be  considered  the  unit  had  no  more 
effect  on  money  or  prices  of  other  things  quoted  in  money 
than  naming  the  unit  of  time  makes  time  longer  or  short- 
er, or  makes  people  live  to  a  greater  or  less  age. 

Much  is  written  on  the  duty  of  the  government  to  prO' 


68  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

vide  an  "honest  dollar,"  especially  for  working  men. 
Money  already  exists,  and  all  that  legislation  has  any 
right  to  do  is  to  say  how  much  of  it  by  weight  shall  be 
the  unit  of  it.  It  is  the  same  as  if  we  were  told  that  the 
yard  and  the  pound  are  not  "honest,"  and  length  must 
be  added  to  one  and  weight  added  to  the  other.  But  the 
price  of  yards  and  pounds  of  goods  as  paid  for  in  labor 
would  rise;  that  is,  labor's  price  would  fall.  And  so  it 
is  with  the  dollars  of  increased  purchasing  power;  it  will 
take  more  labor  to  buy  one.    They  will  buy  more  labor. 

Trenholm  defines  "value"  (p.  27  of  Abridgement  of 
"The  People's  Money"): 

"Value  is  an  abstract  term  expressing  a  relation — it 
does  not  exist  in  things  said  to  possess  it,  but  is  imputed 
to  them  by  human  intelligence — it  is  not  a  quality  of 
objects,  but  only  an  attribute  with  which  they  become 
invested.  Value  is  very  different  from  utility,  though 
utility  is  generally,  but  not  always,  the  basis  of  value. 
Utility  is  a  physical  relation,  whereas  value  is  an  abstract 
relation.  Brute  animals  have  a  perception  of  utility;  they 
have  no  conception  of  value.  Value  is  a  purely  human 
conception.  Value  may  be  primarily  and  generically 
defined  as  the  relation  between  human  desire  and  prox- 
imate objects  of  human  pursuit.  Those  things  with  which 
nature  supplies  us  gratuitously  are  not  objects  of  pur- 
suit, and  tJierefore  they  are  not  invested  with  value ;  value 
comes  wholly  from  unsatisfied  desire.  It  is  true  this  desire 
is  excited  by  our  knowledge  of  the  qualities  of  the  thing, 
and  by  our  opinion  that  those  qualities  render  the  thing 
desirable ;  but  this  knowledge  and  this  opinion  are  in  our 
minds,  they  are  not  in  the  thing.  Value  being  a  relation, 
it  must  vary  by  degrees,  not  by  quantities ;  and  degrees  of 
value,  since  value  is  the  correlative  of  desire,  must  vary 
with  the  intensity  of  the  desires  to  which  they  are  related, 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  69 

But  since  value  attaches  only  to  that  which,  though  de- 
sired, is  as  yet  withheld  from  our  possession,  then  value 
must  vary  also  with  the  resistance  to  appropriation." 

Then  the  ''unit  of  value,"  25  8-10  grains  of  gold  coined 
under  our  laws,  is  the  "unit"  of  "an  abstract  relation."  It 
is  the  "unit"  of  "the  relation  between  human  desire  and 
proximate  objects  of  human  pursuit.^' 

D. 

The  True  Name  of  Money's  Office:  "The  Common 
Medium  of  Exchange." — Trenholm  asks  "What  is 
Money?"  and  answers  it  thus: 

"Money  is  recognized  by  its  ability  to  perform  certain 
functions.  Will  it  buy  things,  or  hire  persons  or  prop- 
erty, or  pay  debts?  If  it  will  do  all  these  things  exactly 
as  they  are  done  by  what  is  undoubtedly  money,  then 
the  coin  or  note  in  question  is  money." 

On  the  plains  before  railroad  days  a  keg  of  whisky 
would  "buy  things  or  hire  persons  or  property,"  not  "ex- 
actly as  they  are  done  by  what  is  undoubtedly  money," 
but  much  better.  There  are  many  places  where  commo- 
dities answer  the  purpose  of  a  medium  of  exchange  to- 
day better  than  money. 

That  the  "coin  or  note  in  question  is  not  money,"  but 
is  only  used  as  money,  Trenholm  shows  in  the  sentence 
next  following  the  above: 

"The  community  may  not  be  wise  in  accepting  certain 
things  as  money  and  becoming  dependent  upon  them,  but 
that  is  a  very  different  matter." 

Here  is  what  we  want  to  know:  What  is  money  that 
nothing  else  is?  That  is  to  say,  what  does  money  do  that 
nothing  else  does?  What  field  as  a  whole  is  its  field? 
What  office  does  it  perform  that  nothing  else  does  "in 
exactly  the  same  way"  in  the  widest  sense?    Its  use  is 


70  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

SO  old  a  custom  that  we  ought  to  find  among  the  Greek 
philosophers  a  perfect  definition  of  it,  for  they  were  what 
many  who  pose  as  philosophers  to-day  are  not — seekers 
for  truth.  Aristotle  says  it  is  a  commodity  designed  to 
facilitate  the  exchange  of  other  commodities.  If  we  say 
used  instead  of  "designed,"  and  put  "all"  before  "other," 
it  is  nearly  complete:  a  commodity  used  to  facilitate  the 
exchange  of  all  other  commodities.  Money's  special  office 
is  that  of  exchanger  of  the  other  commodities.  That  is  the 
true  name  of  money's  office. 

Trenholm  finds  the  answer  to  the  question  "What  is 
money?"  (what  things  are  money)  by  inverting  first 
Pilate's  question  "What  is  truth?".  Truth  is — ;  and  then 
doing  the  same  with  the  other,  thus:  Money  is — . 
"Straightway  the  puzzle  vanishes  and  we  know  how  to 
seek  out  answers,"  says  he.  "Truth  is  established  by  evi- 
dence ;  money  is  recognized  by  its  abiHty  to  perform  cer- 
tain functions.  Will  it  buy  things,  or  hire  persons  or  prop- 
erty, or  pay  debts.  If  it  will  do  all  these  things  exactly 
as  they  are  done  by  what  is  undoubtedly  money,  then 
the  coin  or  note  in  question  is  money." 

"What  is  a  horse"?  It  is  an  animal  that  pulls  a  wagon. 
It  is  a  beast  of  burden.  "Are  those  two  animals  hitched 
up  together  and  pulling  a  wagon  in  Germany,  one  of 
those  countries  of  such  'high  civilization,'  horses?"  Yes. 
"One  looks  just  like  a  woman  and  the  other  just  Hke  a  dog, 
but  as  they  are  harnessed  together  and  drawing  a  wagon 
they  are  no  doubt  horses,  as  Trenholm's  logic  proves." 
Put  that  in  his  science  primer  of  money  and  send  it  to 
Mr.  Norman. 

There  is  only  one  thing  in  the  world  that  performs  the 
offices  of  money  "exactly  as  they  are  done  by  what  is 
undoubtedly  money,"  and  that  one  thing  is  silver.  It 
buys  small  and  great,  nothing  else  does;  it  alone  is  the 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  11 

common  medium  of  exchange  when  not  interfered  with 
in  that  office  purposely.  So  it  is  not  strange  that  ku-par, 
or  white  gold,  was  ''money"  in  Babylonia  and  Assyria, 
and  argenteum  in  the  Prankish  kingdom  of  Charlemagne, 
and  argent,  silver,  is  "money"  in  the  French  language. 
In  that  very  old  transaction  of  uncertain  date — the  buying 
of  a  burying  ground  called  Macpelah  from  the  Hittites — 
the  "current  money  with  the  merchant"  was  silver.  Geld, 
gildi,  etc.,  among  the  Gothic  peoples  goes  back  to  gold; 
but,  alas!  for  Messrs.  Wells,  Trenholm,  Cleveland  and 
other  Anglo-maniacs,  they  were  not  people  of  as  "high 
civilization,"  by  their  definition,  as  were  the  users  of  silver. 
Another  reason  they  did  not  use  silver  (besides  the  one 
that  they  did  not  know  how  to  smelt  it)  was  that  their 
country — Russia — ^had  gold  but  no  silver  in  her  moun- 
tains, so  far  as  they  knew.  The  true  definition  of  moneyj 
and  its  office  is  "the  common  medium  of  exchange."* 
Furthermore,  money  is  final  payment.  When  A  pays  B 
money  they  are  done  with  each  other  on  that  transaction, 
and  B  is  done  with  everybody  else.  But  when  A  gives  B 
a  bill  of  credit,  no  matter  if  called  money  and  made  legal 
tender  the  transaction  continues,  it  is  not  ended  for  B 
or  the  series  of  men  who  receive  it  from  him  in  turn. 

E. 

"Measure  of  Value." — Even  the  Encyclopedia  Britan- 
nica,  whose  owners  dare  not  go  against  average  British 
opinion  on  money  any  more  than  they  dare  favor  democ- 
racy, says:  "The  functions  which  money  discharges  in 
the  social  organism  are — at  least  in  the  opinion  of  all 
writers  worth  noticing  here — clearly  manifest.  The  most 
important  is  that  of  facilitating  exchanges.  It  is  not  neces- 
sary to  dwell  on  the  great  importance  of  this  office." 
But  it  adds:    "A  second  function  hardly  inferior  in  im- 


72  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

portanee  to  the  one  just  mentioned  is  that  of  affording  a 
ready  means  of  estimating  the  comparative  value  of  dif- 
ferent commodities."  This  function  makes  money  "the 
measure  of  value,"  according  to  all  the  fiat  school  includ- 
ing the  Encyclopedia  Britannica.  The  reason  why  we  need 
a  "measure  of  value"  is  found  in  Mill's  writings  quoted  in 
Enc.  Brit.,  "Money":  "If  a  tailor  had  only  coats  and 
wanted  to  buy  bread  or  a  horse,  it  would  be  very  trouble- 
some to  ascertain  how  much  bread  he  ought  to  obtain 
for  a  coat  or  how  many  coats  he  should  give  for  a  horse, 
and  as  the  number  of  commodities  to  be  dealt  with  in- 
creased the  problem  would  become  harder,  for  each  com- 
modity would  have  to  be  quoted  in  terms  of  every  other 
commodity."  The  Enc.  Brit,  says  above  on  the  same 
page:  "The  earliest  economic  writers  saw  clearly  that 
division  of  employments  was  rendered  possible  only  by 
the  use  of  a  medium  of  exchange,"  It  is  therefore  almost 
as  useless  to  speculate  as  to  what  sort  of  society  would  have 
evolved  had  there  been  nothing  in  nature  that  would  ful- 
fill the  office  of  the  common  medium  of  exchange  as  to 
speculate  upon  what  kind  of  beings  we  would  now  be  had 
one  element  of  air  been  absent  or  in  a  different  proportion 
from  what  it  is.  As  in  a  completely  socialistic  state  money 
is  not  needed  within  the  society,  it  may  be  that  without 
a  common  medium  of  exchange,  well  suited  to  its  work, 
man  would  have  formed  only  completely  socialistic  socie- 
ties. In  earlier  days  on  the  plains  we  traded  middling  of 
bacon  to  Indians  for  venison;  not  as  they  demanded, 
a  piece  of  bacon  for  a  piece  of  venison  of  the  same  size, 
but  a  square  as  large  as  one's  hand  for  a  venison  ham. 
The  difference  in  food-value  and  in  supply  were  the  chief 
factors. 

Man    would    have    got    along    without    a    common 
medium;   but  just  how  we  cannot  be  sure,  nor  is  the 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  7S 

question  important.  We  know  that  we  would  have  got 
along  differently  from  the  way  we  now  do  and  that  is 
about  all  that  we  can  be  sure  of  about  it.  We  have  more 
to  do  with  analysis  of  society  as  it  has  actually  evolved 
than  with  speculations  as  to  how  it  would  have  evolved 
had  we  lacked  some  factor  that  we  have.  We  are  con- 
cerned with  what  man  has  accomplished  by  and  with  the 
common  medium  of  exchange  in  the  past,  and  what  he 
should  do  about  it  in  the  future;  not  with  what  he  would 
have  done  had  there  never  been  such  medium.  But  in 
the  case  stated  by  Mill  and  used  by  the  Britannica  as  the 
excuse  for  adding  another  "function"  there  is  no  such 
need.  For  the  common  medium  of  exchange  actually 
present  or  used  as  the  quoter  of  prices  is  all  that  comes 
between  in  a  trade  of  horses  for  coats,  etc.  If  this  were 
as  the  Britannica  states,  then  money  would  not  be  the 
medium  of  exchange  when  only  used  to  quote  prices  in, 
and  would  only  be  the  medium  of  exchange  when  actual- 
ly handled.  Present,  it  is  the  medium  of  exchange;  ab- 
sent, it  is  the  measure  of  value,  by  British  logic. 

Since  the  raid  on  constitutional  money  has  made  it 
scarce  there  is  much  "trading,"  as  live  stock  for  land,  etc. 
But  the  absent  money  is  the  medium  of  the  exchange  in  a 
more  nearly  true  sense  than  money  or  anything  else  is 
a  "measure  of  value,"  unless  we  use  "measure'?  in  a  special 
and  unusual  sense.  For  each  party  to  the  trade  mentally 
quotes  the  value  of  his  property  in  money  and  also  quotes 
the  value  of  the  other  party's  property  in  money. 

To  say  that  one  of  the  functions  of  money  is  that  of  a 
measure  of  value  is — in  the  only  sense  in  which  it  is  true 
— no  more  than  a  truism,  and  thus  encumbers  but  adds 
nothing  to  the  discussion.  For  in  a  limited  sense  its  value 
is  a  measure  of  value  of  other  things,  so  that  of  each  other 
thing  is  also  a  measure  of  money's  value  at  the  same  time. 


U  tME  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

At  best  its  value  is  only  a  measure  at  the  moment.  In  the 
other  "measures"  we  mean  constant;  in  measure  of  value 
"nothing  is  constant  but  change."  Practically  a  weight 
is  a  "standard,"  or  "measure,"  or  constant,  for  we  do  all 
weighing  where  gravitation  acts  with  equal  force.  The 
evolution  school  has  this  advantage  over  the  fiat 
school:  When  the  latter  say  gold  is  the  measure  it  can 
only  possibly  be  true  during  certain  periods,  and  by  virtue 
of  fiat.  As  the  "measure"  is  changed  the  deferred  obliga- 
tions ought  justly  to  be  scaled  down  in  accordance  with 
the  change.  Not  only  this,  but  as  the  fiat-made  "meas- 
ure" changes  in  measuring  power,  they  ought  to  be  read- 
justed whenever  it  changes. 

As  a  coin  cannot  be  the  unit  of  value,  it  can  not,  for 
the  same  reason,  be  a  measure  of  value.  That  is  measur- 
ing the  metaphysical  by  the  physical,  force  by  matter. 

To  one  of  Norman's  American  authorities  (my  brother) 
I  said:  "If  you  will  analyze  the  meaning  of  Value'  you  will 
see  that  there  can  be  no  measure  of  it."  He  answered: 
"It  measures  it  for  the  moment  and  for  the  act  that  passes." 
But  the  other  fiatists  call  it  a  "standard  measure  of  value." 

Trenholm  says: 

"Now,  whatever  is  depended  upon  as  a  measure  of  any- 
thing, must  itself  be  constant  and  unchanging  in  respect 
to  the  quality  which  it  is  to  measure.  A  measure  of  length 
must  not  be  subject  to  linear  contraction  and  expansion; 
a  measure  of  weight  must  not  be  subject  to  changes  in  its 
own  weight;  a  measure  of  time  must  be  chronometrically 
accurate;  a  measure  of  force  must  never  show  variable 
results  under  identical,  conditions;  hence  money,  as  a 
measure  of  value,  should  itself  be  free  from  variation  in 
value." 

In  the  Appendix  to  Miss  Sharland's  book,  "The  Coin 
of  the  Realm:   What  is  it?"  (p.  i8o),  Mr.  Norman  says: 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  75 

^The  standard  substance  is  ordinarily,  as  it  is  intended 
to  be,  a  measure  of  general  and  particular  values,  though 
itself  of  variable  value."  He  thinks  gold  and  silver  can 
not  both  be  money,  because  with  respect  to  each  the  other 
varies  in  value;  but  gold  alone  can  be  money,  although 
with  respect  to  its  value  to-day  it  might  vary  to-morrow 
even  if  there  were  no  change  in  the  supply  of  and  demand 
for  the  things  it  measures. 

Note  Trenholm's  proviso,  "under  identical  conditions." 
That  is  a  case  that  never  happens.  There  is  never,  nor 
will  there  ever  be,  an  exact  repetition  of  "conditions"  or 
relations  between  the  amount  of  money  in  the  world  and 
the  work  for  it  to  do.  Money  never  naturally  measures 
the  same  for  any  considerable  time;  it  artificially  or  by 
agreement  measures  one  thing  the  same — debts.  But 
by  the  change  in  its  measuring  power — value — ^the  debt, 
though  not  changed  in  stated  value,  is  changed  in  real 
value.    After  defining  value  as  a  relation  Trenholm  says: 

"We  may  therefore  measure  the  intensity  of  such  de- 
sires by  money  or  else  by  human  exertion,  say  by  hours  or 
days  of  labor  or  of  pursuit.  Under  civilization,  cost,  out- 
side of  civilization,  intensity  and  duration  of  exertion, 
measure  "the  obstacles  to  appropriating  any  desired  object. 
Value,  therefore,  is  measured  by  money  or  by  human 
exertion  during  certain  intervals  of  time." 

And: 

"The  force  of  gravitation  produces  relations  somewhat 
like  those  expressed  by  the  term  Value.'  We  are  accus- 
tomed to  speak  of  the  weight  of  bodies  as  we  speak  of  the 
value  of  commodities,  but  weight  is  not  a  quality  of  sucti 
bodies;  it  is  merely  an  attribute  expressive  of  a  relation 
between  its  mass  and  the  earth's  mass." 

A  piece  of  metal  that  we  call  a  pound  weight  is  not  the 
unit  of  "the  force  of  gravitation."    Its  action  is  arbitrarily 


n  THiE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

taken  as  the  unit  of  the  action  of  all  bodies.  As  a  weigh- 
able  thing,  as  material  that  always  pushes  toward  the  cen- 
ter of  the  earth,  it  is  taken  as  the  unit  of  the  mass  of  things 
in  their  like  action.  But  these  relations  are  unchanging 
between  the  pound  weight  and  other  things  that  act  as  it 
does.  This  is  not  true  of  the  relations  of  things  to  each 
other  with  respect  to  the  intensity  of  man's  desire  to  pos- 
sess them.  Man's  desire  for  one  of  them  being  to-day 
sated  because  he  'has  enough  for  present  use,  the  rela- 
tion of  that  one  with  respect  to  another  one  of  them,  of 
which  the  supply  is  short,  at  once  changes;  i.  e.,  value 
varies  with  supply  and  demand  of  the  things  desired.  It 
also  varies  with  the  increase  or  decrease  in  the  volume  of 
the  "measure" — money.  Hence  it  is  unscientific  and  mis- 
leading to  liken  value  to  weight,  "measures"  of  value  to 
measures  of  weight. 

Tren'holm  says: 

"Whenever  money  passes  in  exchange  for  property, 
services,  etc.,  its  value  is  presumed  to  be  equal  to  that  of 
the  thing  for  which  it  is  exchanged;  hence  the  amount 
of  money  paid — the  price — becomes  the  expression  of  the 
value  of  that  thing.  In  this  respect  a  dollar  is  as  absolute- 
ly a  measure  of  value  as  an  inch  is  a  measure  of  length, 
or  as  a  pound  is  a  measure  of  weight.  In  many  cases, 
'however,  values  are  estimated  and  expressed  in  money 
terms  when  no  money  is  present,  and  some  persons  have 
found  a  difficulty  in  understanding  how  these  can  be  ac- 
cepted as  instances  of  the  measurement  of  value  by  money. 

"Such  difficulty  will  disappear  when  it  is  considered 
that  from  the  constant  use  of  any  standard  in  actual  meas- 
urements we  acquire  more  or  less  skill  in  estimating  sim- 
ilar measurements  without  applying  our  standard,  and 
since  money  is  by  far  the  most  frequently  used  of  all 
standards  of  measurement,  it  is  quite  natural  that  there 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  77 

should  be  fixed  in  our  minds  a  value-scale  marked  off  in 
dollars  and  fractions  of  a  dollar  sufficiently  accurate  to 
serve  ordinary  purposes.  In  these  cases,  therefore,  while 
we  may  not  actually  measure  with  money  all  the  values 
we  are  dealing  in,  our  estimate  and  acceptance  of  these 
values  proceeds  wholly  from  belief  in  the  accuracy  of  our 
mental  value-scale,  and  accuracy  in  this  case  means,  of 
course,  conformity  with  actual  money  values.  The  fact 
is  that  money  performs  its  function  of  measuring  values 
chiefly  through  the  medium  of  computation." 

This  is  his  theory.  The  fact  is  that  one  person  gives  a 
commodity  and  gets  money  not  because  the  money  is 
worth  just  what  the  commodity  is.  He  makes  the  ex- 
change solely  because  the  money,  in  his  estimation,  is 
worth  more  than  the  commodity.  The  one  who  gets  the 
commodity  takes  it  because  it  is  worth  more  to  him 
than  the  money.  Exchanging  by  the  use  of  the  medium, 
the  same  as  in  barter  without  a  medium,  is  giving  of  things 
of  equal  value  by  a  "measure,"  but  of  unequal  values  other- 
wise. People  trade,  not  to  get  just  the  same  value  they 
had  before,  but  to  get  (to  them)  greater  value. 

Money  is  not  a  measure  of  value  (utility)  at  all.  It  is 
not  a  measure  of  value  (exchangeability  or  price)  in  any 
sense  that  can  be  properly  likened  to  measures  of  weight 
or  measures  of  length,  the.  measures  to  which  it  is  oftenest 
tried  to  be  likened.  To  call  it  a  measure  is  like  taking  the 
air  in  a  town  as  the  measure  of  air,  the  unit  of  its 
density  or  rarity,  though  it  itself  is  rarer  at  one  time  and 
denser  at  another.  Money  is  that  in  which  prices  are 
quoted,  which  is  only  another  way  of  saying  it  is  the 
medium  of  exchange.  We  quote,  name  or  tell  the  prices 
in  money  rather  than  measure  them.  Garnett  of  the  San 
Francisco  Mint  (Forum,  January,  1895)  speaks  of  labor 
and  wages  as  a  measure  of  value,  ignoring  the  difference 


78  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

between  what  labor  costs  the  laborer,  what  it  is  worth  to 
the  buyer  of  it,  and  what  it  fetches  in  wages ;  all  of  which 
are  usually  unequal  and  seldom,  if  ever,  equal. 

F. 

Standard  of  Value. — Those  who  use  the  term  mean  by 
it  standard  of  exchangeable  value.  That  is,  standard  of 
exchangeability.  But  if  all  other  factors  that  can  affect 
prices  remain  the  same,  yet  a  change  in  the  quantity  ol 
money  or  the  demand  for  it  may  affect  prices.  Weston  says 
in  his  "Money"  (p.  30):  ''But  oftentimes  the  phrase  'stand- 
ard of  value'  is  intended  to  mean,  or  is  accepted  as  mean- 
ing something  which  never  varies  and  that  when  there  is  a 
fluctuation  of  general  prices,  the  change  of  value  is  always 
in  the  things  sold  and  never  in  the  money  for  which  they 
are  sold."  Locke  said  two  hundred  years  ago,  "Money 
being  looked  on  as  the  standard  measure  of  other  com- 
modities men  consider  and  speak  of  it  as  if  it  were  a  stand- 
ing measure,  although  when  it  has  varied  in  quantity  it  is 
plain  that  it  is  not."  The  corner-stone  of  the  gold  fiatists 
is  that  there  is  value  and  there  must  be  a  standard  of 
value ;  and  on  this  they  build  that  a  standard  cannot  be 
two  things,  but  must  be  one.  Garnett*  in  his  article  dwells 
on  the  suitableness  of  gold  for  "the  standard  measure  of 
value."  They  assume  that  Congress  has  the  power  to  fix 
and  unfix  the  "standard  of  value."  "Standard"  comes 
from  Latm  sto,  "I  stand,"  stans,  standing  By  grant  of 
the  power  from  the  people  Congress,  as  their  Hmited  and 
special  agent,  can  determine  that  a  yard  is  the  distance  be- 
tween two  points  three  times  as  far  apart  as  were  the  heel 

*  Lindermann  of  the  Philadelphia  mint,  Garnett  of  San  Fran- 
cisco mint,  Posey  Wilson  of  Denver  mint,  Norman  of  Calcutta 
mint,  all  gold-fiatists,  are  examples  of  what  Buddha  says;  that 
a  spoon  though  immersed  in  soup  does  not  perceive  its  taste. 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  79 

and  toe  of  some  man  among  some  of  our  ancestors  in 
the  north  of  Europe,  or  thirty-six  times  the  distance  apart 
that  his  thumb  was  broad,  as  the  words  "foot"  from  fod, 
and  inch  (tum  or  "thumb"  in  Scandinavian)  show. 

When  great  exactness  was  not  necessary,  and  when  the 
race  was  less  mixed,  the  length  of  feet  and  width  of 
thumbs  was  perhaps  more  nearly  uniform  than  now,  but 
later  on  some  average  for  all  was  taken.  And  when  one 
agrees  to  deliver  "pounds"  of  any  material  it  means  as 
much  of  it  as  will  push  toward  the  center  of  the  earth  with 
the  same  vigor  and  effect  that  a  certain  lump  of  metal  does 
that  Congress  officially  names  "pound."  And  its  weight 
was  "regulated"  by  an  older  weight,  as  the  value  of  our 
first  dollar  coined  was  "regulated"  by  the  value  of  the 
Spanish  milled  dollar,  or  as  a  watch  is  "regulated"  by 
some  other  time-keeper. 

If  it  were  possible  to  learn  the  history  completely  it 
would  no  doubt  appear  that  the  original  "standard  of 
value"  was  something  to  eat,  as  the  image  of  a  cow  or 
sheep  stamped  on  a  piece  of  metal  seems  to  show.  That 
was  a  "standard  measure  of  value"  (utility.)  It  was  food 
that  was  always,  in  the  same  sort  of  a  stomach  under  the 
same  circumstances,  transmutable  into  so  much  blood, 
brawn  and  brain  of  man.  It  goes  along  with  the  Sanskrit 
original  of  "value"  in  the  sense  of  "to  nourish." 

No  matter  how  scarce  cattle  were  the  food-value  to  the 
priest  and  the  propitiation-value  to  the  god  were  no  great- 
er; no  matter  how  plenty  cattle  were  the  tempi e-tariflf 
stayed  the  same.  It  was  a  "standard  of  value" — i.  e., 
utility.  There  is  no  such  standard  of  exchangeable  value. 
Garnett,  like  some  others,  talks  of  using  "human  labor" 
as  a  "standard  of  value,"  but  purposely  or  unconsciously 
slides  into  the  use  of  "the  wages  of  labor"  as  such  standard. 


80  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

What  laborers  get  and  what  their  labor  is  worth  he  takes 
for  granted  are  the  same. 

The  state  of  mind  and  body  of  the  whole  mass  of  men, 
and  the  quantity  of  the  exchangeable  things  compared 
therewith  being  the  cause  of  (exchangeable)  value  and 
being  themselves  inconstant,  there  cannot  be,  in  the  true 
sense  of  the  word  standard,  any  ''standard  of  value"  or 
value-constant.  The  same  objection  to  the  use  of  a  coin 
or  a  mass  of  metal  as  the  standard  of  value  which  is  not 
a  thing,  is  found  in  this  case  as  when  used  in  the  phrase 
"unit  of  value."  It  is  taking  a  material  as  the  standard 
of  that  which  is  immaterial — a  thing  as  the  standard  of 
relations  between  things. 

A  weight  is  a  constant.  It  always  pushes  toward  the 
center  of  the  earth  with  the  same  force,  at  or  near  sea 
level.  So  its  action  is  properly  taken  as  the  unit  of  the 
mass  of  matter^s  actions  of  that  kind.  It  is  a  constant  if 
always  made  of  the  same  material,  in  the  same  condition 
and  of  the  same  size.  But  matter  is  an  inconstant  (when 
we  compare  like  bodies  of  it  as  to  size),  with  respect  to 
its  downward-pushing  disposition.  Cork  and  Nevada 
mahogany  of  the  same  bulk  are  not  of  the  same  down- 
ward-pushing energy.  The  whole  body  of  matter,  if  it 
could  all  be  tested  under  the  same  circumstances,  would 
be  found  to  be  a  constant.  And  its  unit  is  a  constant, 
whether  the  whole  mass  is  or  not.  A  unit  must  be  a  con- 
stant. The  same  is  true  of  the  length-unit.  Space  has  no 
bounds.  It  is  a  constant.  What  we  arbitrarily  take  as 
the  unit  of  space  is  a  constant;  it  is  always  just  so  big. 
Out  of  it  we  get  the  length-unit;  we  arbitrarily  take  two 
points  in  space  and  say  that  the  distance  between  them  is 
the  unit  of  length.  It  is  a  constant.  That  which  it  meas- 
ures is  a  constant.  That  of  which  it  i«  taken  as  the  unit 
is  a  constant 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  81 

Now  what  is  the  case  as  to  value  and  unit  of  value? 
Value  exists  only  in  the  mind,  estimation,  wants  of  man. 
Value — exchangeability — depends  on  man's  anxiety  to 
have.  Value  changes  as  the  quantity  of  the  thing  desired 
changes,  as  its  volume  comes  more  or  less  near  to  supply- 
ing all  who  desire  it  and  as  the  ideas  of  men  about  the 
desired  thing  change.  If  we  may  so  express  it  the  vol- 
ume of  value  changes  with  the  volume  of  the  thing  of 
which  value  is  the  quality,  and  for  other  reasons.  Less 
material  volume  means,  usually,  intensification  of  qual- 
ity; or  short  supply,  higher  price.  The  total  volume  of 
thing  and  quality  is  inconstant  and  the  unit  of  the  quality 
(value)  if  thinkable,  is  not  a  constant.  It  is  thus  seen  by 
those  patient  enough  to  follow  the  gold-fiatists  through 
the  muddle  that  they  make  of  measures,  units,  yard-sticks 
and  weights  that  they  compare  the  absolute  to  the  relative 
and  vice  versa.  They  are  guilty  of  taking  a  unit  of  man^s 
desire  of  exchangeable  things  and  saying  it  is  in  some 
ways  the  same  as  the  distance  between  two  points  in  space ; 
in  some  ways  like  the  strength  with  which  a  certain  piece 
of  iron  pushes  earthward.  Panned  out  from  the  dust 
around  it  their  expression  that  a  gold  dollar  or  pound  is 
the  "unit  of  value"  means  that  a  coin  is  a  part  of  the  mental 
process  of  desiring. 

The  British  gold-fiatists  acknowledge  that  money's, 
chief  office  is  that  of  common  medium  of  exchange,  and 
make  the  "third  function",  or  that  of  "standard  of  value" 
the  outgrowth  of  modern  conditions  that  have  brought  in- 
to existence  obligations  payable  at  future  dates,  some  of 
them  very  long  distant.  Then  before  the  days  of  such  obli- 
gations money  was  not  "the  standard  of  value."  Their 
American  followers  have  gone  beyond  them  in  the  argu- 
ment; ignore  the  office  of  medium  of  exchange,  or  try  to 
dodge  it,  and  base  their  argument  entirely  on  money's 


82  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

offices  of  "measure"  and  "standard,"  namely,  that  a  stand- 
ard cannot  be  two  things  and  must  be  one. 

As  things  that  are  equal  to  the  same  are  equal  to  each 
other  there  is  no  more  incongruity  in  having  two  "meas- 
ures of  value"  or  two  "standards  of  value,"  as  they  ex- 
press it,  than  there  is  in  testing  whisky  by  weight  and  wine 
measure  both.  One  pound  of  gold,  or  15  J  times  as  many 
of  silver,  will  "measure"  the  "value"  equally  well,  if  either 
measures  it  at  all.  They  deny  this  on  the  ground  that 
there  is  no  natural  ratio.  They  prove  the  latter  by  citing 
the  effect  of  their  own  interference  with  the  ratio ;  leaving 
one  metal  to  all  the  offices  for  which  nature  fits  it,  and 
violently  interfering  with  one  of  the  offices  forwhich  nature 
fits  the  other. 

As  this  is  pleading  their  own  wrong  in  their  own 
defense,  they  are  driven  from  that  defense  and  rest  their 
case  on  the  assumption  that  there  is  no  natural  ratio.  Our 
ignoramus  President  says  that  if  we  could  get  enough 
foreign  nations  to  join  us  in  the  effort  we  could  make  an 
artificial  one  that  would  do.  This  will  be  treated  further 
on. 

The  Britannica  gets  the  need  of  a  standard  of  value 
from  long-time  bonds. 

Trenholm  says:  "The  existence  of  trade  creates  the 
need  of  a  standard  of  value,  and  since  trade  at  the  present 
day  is  world-wide,  there  is  now  a  necessity,  not  existing 
even  a  hundred  years  ago,  for  a  world-wide  standard  of 
value.  MilHons  of  us  buy  and  sell  things  by  yards  and 
pounds,  bushels  and  gallons,  and  are  content  with  the 
implements  kept  in  the  shop  or  those  sold  to  us  for  use  at 
home.  We  assume  that  they  are  correct  and  make  them 
the  standards  for  all  our  measurements — without  recall- 
ing, even  if  we  know,  that  the  laws  require  implements  of 
measurement  to  conform  to  certain  standards  carefully 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  83 

and  accurately  constructed,  which  are  kept  under  lock  and 
key  at  the  National  Museum  at  Washington. 

"So  it  is  with  our  value-scales;  we  use  dollars,  etc.,  as 
measures  of  value,  without  reflecting  that  their  usefulness 
for  this  purpose  depends  wholly  upon  their  correspond- 
ence with  the  standard  of  value  fixed  by  law,  just  as  the 
usefulness  of  foot-rules,  quart  measures  and  pound 
weights  depends  upon  their  conformity  with  the  legal 
standards  of  dimension  and  weight." 

It  does  not  change  the  total  quantity  of  things  in  exist- 
ence whether  we  take  as  a  measure  or  a  standard,  or  a 
standard  measure  a  quart  or  pint,  a  yard  or  foot,  a  pound 
or  half  pound.  Nor  could  it  justly  change  the  amount 
deliverable  on  an  aforemade  contract  by  changing  the 
name. 

But  in  changing  what  Trenholm  calls  the  "standard  of 
value,"  which  is  in  fact  only  "medium  of  exchange,"  from 
gold  and  silver  to  gold  and  paper  we  do  both;  we  force  pro- 
ducers to  produce  more  and  give  more  in  paying  personal 
and  public  debts  than, they  agreed  to  at  the  time  the  debts 
were  made.  In  the  paragraph  "so  with  our  value-scales"" 
he  tells  us  that  the  increase  and  decrease  in  volume  of  dol- 
lars has  no  more  effect  on  values  than  the  increase  in  the 
number  of  yardsticks  has  on  the  length  of  yards.  If  he  can 
show  that  the  more  foot-rules  we  have  the  taller  the  man 
becomes  (as  the  more  dollars  the  greater  the  value  of  the 
commodity)  the  more  rules  it  takes  to  measure  the  man's 
height  and  the  more  units  of  "the  standard  of  value^  to 
measure  a  thing's  value,  then  he  can  truly  say  "so  with 
our  value-scales"  in  other  respects.  This  would  have  been 
well  illustrated  in  slavery  times.  A  man  often  waked  up 
and  found  himself  richer  in  property  quoted  in  "dollars," 
because  the  quantity  of  dollars  had  been  increased,  and  it 
took  more  dollars  to  "measure"  the  value  of  his  slaves  in 


84  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

dollars.  Had  he  waked  up  and  found  his  adult  slaves 
taller  he  would  have  known  at  once  that  there  had  been 
renewed  activity  in  the  foot-rule  factories,  by  Trenholm's 
logic. 

They  were  only  "fixed  by  law'^  in  the  sense  that  legisla- 
tion recognized  "standards"  that  it  found  in  use  older  than 
itself;  feet,  inches,  pounds.  Legislation  could  properly 
change  these  and  call  thirty-six  inches  a  foot,  but  it  could 
not  enforce  aforemade  contracts  to  furnish  feet  of  anything 
by  making  the  deliverer  give  feet  of  thirty-six  inches  each. 
When  by  demonetizing  silver  the  volume  of  money  is  de- 
creased and  its  purchasing  power  raised  the  effect  on  ex- 
isting debts  is  just  what  the  above-named  change  in  the 
length  of 'a  foot  would  be.  It  lowers  the  value  of  all  com- 
modities and  of  labor,  or  keeps  them  from  going  to  what 
they  would  rise  to.  But  it  leaves  debts  as  before.  Its  pur- 
pose was  robbery,  and  it  accomplishes  it.  The  term 
"standard  of  value"  and  the  metaphysical  discussions  of 
it  are  used  to  try  to  hide  the  fact  that  the  purpose  of 
demonetization  is  theft,  and  that  it  accomplishes  it. 

The  metaphysics  of  "standard"  and  "measure"  no  more 
concern  the  money  question  than  does  the  dispute  whether 
man  is  only  a  body  or  a  body  and  spirit  concern  us  when 
we  are  tickled :  we  laugh,  whether  body  only  or  body  and 
spirit. 

"Lord  Stanhope  had  laid  it  down  as  a  principle,  'that 
a  pound  sterling  being  the  abstract  value,  by  which  the 
computed  value  of  any  object  of  consumption  is  measured, 
that  value  ought  to  be  independent  of  the  variable  quali- 
ties of  gold  and  silver,  the  representative  signs  of  which 
may  be  found  in  circulation.'  In  conformity  with  this 
doctrine  by  which  an  abstract  idea  was  made  the  standard 
of  value,  the  British  Government  had  imposed  a  penalty  on 
all  who  should  presume  to  pay  more  than  21  shillings  in 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  85 

bank  paper  for  a  guinea,  and  so  very  profound  and 
ingenious  a  theory  could  not  fail  to  make  proselytes  on 
this  side  of  the  Atlantic.  It  was  the  delusion  of  the  day.  A 
host  of  British  ministerial  writers  had  taken  much  pains 
to  prove  that  Bank  of  England  paper  was  as  good  as  gold 
and  even  better  than  gold :  and  they  had  numerous  copy- 
ists in  America."  (Gouge  History  of  Paper  Money  and 
Banking). 

The  statement  that  money  is  the  standard  of  value  and 
that  a  standard  cannot  be  two  different  substances  and  can 
only  be  one  leads  where  they  do  not  want  to  go.  Money 
buys  anything  that  is  for  sale,  but  gold  will  not  buy,  one 
at  a  time,  that  vast  mass  of  small-priced  articles  whose 
prices  make  up  in  the  aggregate  a  far  greater  sum  than  the 
same  when  sold  in  gross.  Gold  alone  cannot  be  money, 
the  medium  of  the  exchange  of  everything  else.  If,  then, 
money  is  the  standard  of  value,  as  they  say,  and  can  only 
be  one  thing,  as  they  also  say;  and  if  it  must  be  divisible 
into  small  enough  pieces  to  pay  for  anything,  as  it  unques- 
tionably must  to  be.money,  then  they  have  proved  a  great 
truth  without  intending  it:  to  wit,  that  silver  is  the  only 
thing  that  unaided  fulfills  the  definitions  and  the  practical 
requirements  in  money. 

In  calling  money  "the  standard  of  value"  for  deferred 
obligations  there  are  two  fatal  objections,  particularly 
when  9one  by  gold-fiatists.  First,  its  value  changes  of 
itself,  especially  in  long  periods  (for  which  they  say  we 
especially  need  a  "standard  of  value.")  Secondly,  the  fiat- 
ists  base  their  use  of  it  as  the  "standard  of  value"  on  the 
power  of  legislatures  or  kings  to  change  the  "standard"  at 
will.  In  a  qualified  and  special  sense  any  value  may 
perhaps  be  taken  as  a  "standard  of  value."  But  the  quality 
of  being  the  common  medium  of  exchange  is  natural,  not 


86  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

arbitrary.    And  money,  as  we  saw,  is  a  natural  evolution, 
not  an  arbitrary  creation  in  its  office. 

Future  payments  or  deferred  payments  are  only  the 
completion  of  long  and  complicated  instead  of  simple  and 
short  acts  of  exchanging,  and  such  acts  only  need  the 
common  medium  of  exchange,  just  as  the  instantaneous 
exchanging  does.  The  modern  and  new-born  bond-begot- 
ten "standard  of  value"  is  superfluous.  In  the  way  in 
which  the  American  gold-fiatists  use  it  it  is  nonsense. 

In  deferred  obligations  nothing  is  promised  but  dollars; 
dollar  is  the  unit  of  money,  money  is  a  natural  thing,  whose 
value  depends  on  natural  supply  and  demand:  no  one  can, 
no  one  does  assure  the  holder  of  the  deferred  obligations 
that  his  money  will  in  the  future  be  of  the  same  value  in 
exchange  as  when  he  lends  it.  There  is  no  more  reason 
why  he  should  be  so  assured  than  the  borrowing  wheat- 
grower  should  be  assured  that  each  bushel  of  wheat  in  a 
future  crop  will  bear  the  same  relation  to  each  dollar  of  his 
indebtedness  in  the  future  that  it  does  on  the  day  he 
borrows. 

There  is  no  more  place  for  a  "standard  of  value"  of 
obligations  payable  in  tlie  future  than  for  a  schedule  of 
market  prices  which  debtors  must  be  allowed  in  the  future 
for  their  products. 

If  the  gold-fiatist  argument  were  good  the  function  o! 
"medium  of  exchange"  would  be  the  least  important 
instead  of  what  the  Britannica  calls  it,  the  most  important; 
in  view  of  the  small  extent  to  which  the  actual  coin  is 
handled  compared  to  the  amount  of  exchanging  done. 

Norman's  reasons  "for  limitation  of  the  definition  of 
money  to  one  substance"  (p.  27)  are  "that  there  are  two  es- 
sential factors  in  money,  the  chief  of  which  is  that  it  is  a 
measure  of  value."  The  essence  or  essential  quality  of  a 
thing  is  that  which  makes  it  different  from  other  things;  its 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  87 

peculiarity.  If  the  use  of  the  term  "measure  of  value"  is 
made  at  all,  it  equally  applies  to  all  other  things  ex- 
changed. Every  exchangeable  thing  measures  every 
other  exchangeable  thing's  exchangeability  in  the  sense 
that  Norman  says  money  measures  it.  The  essence  or 
peculiarity  of  money,  that  which  distinguishes  it  from  all 
other  commodities,  is  that  it  alone  is  the  common  medium 
of  exchange. 

The  reason  that  these  straw-men,  these  two  so-called 
second  and  third  functions  of  money,  are  lugged  into 
the  discussion  comes  from  the  necessity  of  getting  around 
the  fact  that  to  leave  money  defined  as  '*the  common 
medium  of  exchange,"  makes  it  impossible  for  gold  alone 
to  fulfill  the  requirements  of  the  definition.  For  all  ex- 
changes can  not  be  effected  by  it.  The  discovery  by  the 
gold-fiatists  of  a  ''standard  of  value"  that  can  not  be  the 
common  medium  of  exchange  makes  their  science  of 
money  a  trifle  disjointed.  ''Unit  of  value"  is  used  by  "art- 
ful dodgers." 

,  As  a  unit  must  be  a  constant  and  as  value  as  a  whole  or 
as  a  portion  is  not  a  constant  the  unqualified  expression 
"unit  of  value"  is  an  improper  one.  It  is  either  from  the 
foggy-minded  or  intended  to  befog  others. 

But  gold-fiatism  gains  nothing  by  its  attempted  evasion. 
It  is  just  as  necessary  in  practice  that  a  common  measure 
of  exchangeables  (if  we  grant  the  use  of  the  term)  be 
something  that  will  measure  small  as  well  as  great. 
Otherwise  we  would  be  as  if  we  had  only  a  gallon  measure 
to  measure  pints  and  quarts  in.  And  in  the  case  of  the 
"third  function"  they  tacitly  assume  that  the  debtor  in 
the  case  of  deferred  payments  guarantees  that  the  value  or 
purchasing  power  of  what  he  agrees  to  pay  will  be  as  great 
at  maturity  as  at  date  of  the  obligation.    But  he  does 


S8  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

nothing  of  the  kind.  All  who  think  of  it  know  that  the 
chances  are  against  it  being  of  the  same  purchasing 
power.  The  entire  purpose  of  one  class  of  fiatists  has 
been  to  put  the  so-called  "standard"  in  a  condition  of  in- 
creasing purchasing  power.  The  others,  the  government 
paper  fiatists,  have  tried  to  have  a  fiat  medium  that  would 
pay  as  much  of  maturing  obligations  but  cost  the  payers 
less  and  less.  Neither  of  these  is  just.  The  purchasing 
power — value — of  the  medium  depends  on  the  supply  as 
compared  with  the  demand.  Both  must  be  left  free,  with 
no  limit  but  nature's  generosity  and  man's  industry. 
Anything  else  is  unjust. 

The  philosophy  of  the  Encyclopedia  Britannica  and  of 
its  school  is  that  if  A  lends  his  money  to  B  and  takes  B's 
long-time  bond  it  is  the  duty  of  the  government  to  see  that 
A  gets  back  at  the  future  date  a  money  equal  in  purchasing 
power  to  what  he  lent.  If  meantime  the  purchasing  power 
has  declined  the  government  must  put  it  out  of  B's  power 
to  pay  in  that  medium  and  must  substitute  by  fiat  another 
equal  in  purchasing  power  to  the  one  lent  originally. 
Suppose  now  that  B  has  buried  the  money  he  borrowed 
and  by  work  earned  enough  to  pay  the  interest  and  at 
maturity  of  the  bond  digs  up  the  identical  principal  money 
to  pay  back,  but  its  purchasing  power  is  less  than  when  he 
borrowed  it:  upon  the  principles  of  gold-fiatism  govern- 
ment must  make  him  pay  in  some  ether  medium.  Here 
is  the  essence  of  gold-fiatism  as  shown  by  the  Britannica, 
Mr.  Norman,  Henry  Dunning  MacLeod:  "Governments 
do  not  know  the  debtor;  they  exist  for  'fundholders.'" 
Even  where  the  loss  in  purchasing  power  of  the  medium 
is  solely  caused  by  legislation  set  on  foot  by  the  fund- 
holders  for  that  purpose,  they  must  be  allowed  to  get  the 
benefit  and  the  debtors  be  made  to  suffer  the  incon- 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  89 

venience,  according  to  British  morals  and  logic  adopted 
by  some  Americans. 

The  reason,  of  course,  is  that  the  shaky  monarchies 
of  Europe  exist  only  by  the  grace  of  "fundholders."  From 
the  latter  the  rulers  get  the  means  to  pay  for  the  military 
needed  to  keep  the  crowns  on  their  heads.  This  could  not 
be  said  much  plainer  than  Henry  Dunning  MacLeod  says 
it  in  the  conclusion  of  the  "Monometalist  Creed"  in  Nine- 
teenth Century,  Nov.  1894.  The  treaty  between  the 
money-lenders  and  the  usurpers  of  power  is:  one  side 
furnishes  the  money  to  keep  the  other  in  power;  power 
thus  strengthened  by  money  holds  the  producers  of  wealth 
while  the  money-lender  robs  them. 

Their  use  of  the  phrase  "standard  of  value"  is  an  after- 
thought, the  fraudulent  basis  of  a  fraudulent  defense 
of  the  original  fraud. 

A  REPRESENTATIVE  OF  VALUE. 

Money  may  be  said  to  be  that  in  which  value — market 
value — is  represented,  just  as  words  re-present,  that  is, 
present  again,  or  bring  back  to  our  minds,  the  only  cog- 
nizances possible — ^things  and  actions.  But  it  is  not  the 
mass  or  total  of  money  that  re-presents  the  mass  or  total 
of  the  exchangeable  things:  it  is  the  unit  of  money,  its 
fractions  and  multiples,  that  re-present  to  our  minds  a 
given  quantity  of  any  of  the  exchangeable  things.  So 
that  in  calling  money  a  "representative  of  value"  it  only 
means  that  it  is  that  in  which  prices  are  quoted.  And  as 
we  saw  before,  the  office  of  quoter  of  market  prices  is  the 
same  as  that  of  medium  of  exchange.  As  representative 
of  value  its  office  is  not  exclusive.  All  exchangeable 
things  are  representatives  of  exchangeable  value.  It  is 
only  in  its  function  and  office  of  medium  of  exchange  that 


$0  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

money  is  alone.     It  is  only  as  a  medium  of  exchange 
that  it  concerns  legislators. 

CALLING  THINGS  BY  THEIR  NAMES. 

The  effect  of  calling  things  by  their  names  is  never  more 
clearly  seen  than  we  would  see  it  if  the  name  of  this  con- 
tention were  truly  given  as  the  Battle  for  the  Natural 
Medium  of  Exchange,  instead  of  the  misleading  one  of 
"The  Battle  of  the  Standards."  The  fogs  and  sophistries 
would  disappear,  and  all  would  see  the  real  intention  of 
the  gold-basis  fiatists. 

Heine  tells  the  "proud  men  of  action"  to  remember  that 
they  are  only  putting  into  effect  the  ideas  of  the  men  of 
thought  The  brutal  hand  of  confiscation  laid  on  the 
proceeds  of  the  labor  of  the  people  of  the  United  States 
has  been  guided  by  the  erroneous  teachings  of  the  doctrin- 
aire Avith  his  illusion  that  the  medium  of  exchange  is  a 
"standard  of  value"  and  "a  standard  must  be  one  thing 
and  cannot  be  two." 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  dl 


CHAPTER   III. 

MAN'S  NATURAL  RIGHTS  IN  REGARD  TO  THE 
NATURAL  MEDIUM  OF  EXCHANGE. 

Let  us  stop  here  and  look  over  the  ground  we  have 
gained,  and  from  which  they  cannot  be  driven  who  use  the 
natural  and  scientific  method.  The  two  important  points 
are  that  money  is  a  natural  evolution  in  its  office ;  that  its 
function  or  office  is  only  that  of  common  medium  of  ex- 
change, and  that  hence  it  cannot  be  gold  alone.  We  will 
herein  prove  the  lattter  another  way,  and  gain  also  more 
ground. 

September  4,  1893,  in  a  review  of  the  President's  mes- 
sage to  the  conspiracy  session  of  Congress,  I  said: 

*'It  is  every  man's  natural  right  to  coin  bullion  into 
money.  It  is  every  man's  natural  right  to  slay  the  slayer 
of  a  member  of  his  family.  In  instituting  governments  we 
put  the  duty  of  coining  and  the  duty  of  slaying  the  man- 
slayer  upon  our  agent,  the  government." 

And  also: 

"Three-fourths  of  the  gold  and  silver  of  the  world  is 
used  in  the  arts,  one-fourth  as  money.  No  government 
has  the  right  to  restrict  the  amount  that  men  shall  use  for 
either  purpose.  No  government  has  the  just  power  to 
restrict  the  amount  used  for  money  purposes  any  more 
than  the  amount  used  for  spoons  and  finger-rings." 

Three  Groups  of  Commodities:  The  Exchanger  and  the 
Things  Exchanged. — (a)  For  practical  purposes  we  may 
say  that  the  total  of  economic  transactions  is,  in  general 


02  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

terms,  the  producing  of  raw  materials  from  the  earth, 
fashioning  some  of  them  to  suit  man's  uses  and  exchang- 
ing the  one  kind  for  the  other.  Money,  the  exchanger  or 
medium  by  which  the  exchange  is  made,  is,  like  the  things 
it  exchanges,  a  commodity.  Let  any  one  fix  in  his  mind 
two  sets  of  commodities  that  are  exchanged  for  each  other, 
as,  for  instance,  the  raw  material  of  our  western  states 
that  are  exchanged  for  the  manufactured  goods  of  the 
eastern  states;  or  farm  produce  brought  into  a  town  and 
sold  for  money,  which  is  then  paid  for  groceries,  clothing 
and  furniture.  Then  let  him  think  of  gold  and  silver  (as 
the  medium  of  exchange)  as  a  third  set  of  commodities, 
completing  the  mass  of  commodities!  whose  handling 
makes  up  our  trade  life.  Call  raw  materials  R,  manu- 
factured goods  M,  and  the  medium  of  exchange  or  ex- 
changer E. 

REM 


There  they  are,  the  three  symbols  of  the  three  factors 
of  trade.  The  exchanger  is  made  up  of  commodities  and 
so  are  the  other  two.  Nature's  generosity  and  man's 
industry  are  the  only  factors  in  their  production.  What 
just  powers  can  governments  acquire  in  regard  to  the 
volume  of  one  that  man  has  a  right  to  use  that  would 
not  equally  apply  to  the  other  two?  Why  can  govern- 
ments limit  the  volume  of  one  and  not  that  of  the  other 
two?  If  there  can  be  a  just  right  to  limit  and  control 
the  volume  of  the  exchanger,  then  there  is  the 
same  right  to  limit  and  control  the  volume  of  the 
things  that  it  exchanges.  As  there  is  no  right,  no 
jpst  power  anywhere  to  limit  the  volume  of  the 
things  exchanged  there  can  be  no  right,  no  just  power 
anywhereto  limit  the  volume  of  the  medium  of  exchange. 
Norman  says  gold  and  silver  are  "only  substances,"  and 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  95 

Wells  says  all  money  is  a  commodity.  Hence  the  burden 
is  on  them  to  tell  how  and  when  and  where  any  govern- 
ment gets  the  right  or  the  just  power  to  separate  them 
from  and  put  them  on  a  different  footing  from  other  sub- 
stances  and  commodities  in  the  matter  of  the  quantity  of 
them  used  by  the  citizens  for  any  purpose  for  which  they 
may  choose  to  use  them.  The  whole  field  of  production 
is  a  free  one  as  to  the  quantity  produced.  No  govern- 
ment that  has  a  right  to  exist  pretends  to  limit  man 
in  the  amount  of  production  by  his  labors.  The  ex- 
changing of  the  one  kind  for  the  other  is  equally  a  field 
of  freedom  by  nature.  But  when  it  comes  to  the  amount 
of  the  medium  of  exchange  that  men  shall  avail  them- 
selves of,  the  astoundingly  impuderit  and  tyrannical  claim 
is  made  that  governmental  wisdom  must  fix  the  quantity 
and  the  power  of  the  government  enforce  it.  All  three 
political  parties  in  the  United  States  make  this  claim. 

Raw  material,  money  and  manufactured  goods  each 
is  a  group  of  commodities.  The  rights  of  man  with  re- 
spect to  the  commodities  in  each  group  is  precisely  of  the 
same  nature,  and  to  interfere  with  or  take  them  away  is 
tyranny  and  slavery.  The  duties,  functions,  or,  as  they 
are  called,  "delegated  powers,"  of  governments  in  respect 
to  each  is  of  the  same  nature.  Having  invented  systems 
of  coinage,  weights  and  measures  men  make  it  the  duty 
of  their  agent,  the  government,  to  certify  to  such.  It  is 
most  convenient  to  have  our  agent  the  government  to 
stamp  the  weight  and  quality  upon  the  commodities  them- 
selves in  group  E,  which  are  used  as  the  means  of  ex- 
changing the  commodities  of  the  other  two  groups  for 
each  other.  Suppose  that  instead  of  having  the  gov- 
ernment certify  as  our  agent  to  a  uniform  system  of 
weights  and  measures  and  let  individuals  do  their  own 
weighing  and  measuring  with  them    we  had  provided 


d4  tHE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

that  metals  and  woods  and  cloths  should  be  divided  by 
cutting  or  by  marks  made  thereon  at  the  factory  by  gov- 
ernment officers,  and  that  all  things,  where  it  could  be 
done,  should  be  put  up  in  packages  and  the  weight  and 
length  stamped  on  the  package  by  such  government  offi- 
cers; and  that  nothing  should  be  bought,  sold  gr 
exchanged  unless  so  stamped. 

Suppose  that  after  near  a  century  of  that  practice  a 
party  were  to  say  that  corn-bread  is  not  a  food  "suited  to 
conditions  of  a  high  civilization"  (as  Wells  says  of  silver, 
Forum,  October,  1893,  '^^^  ^s  the  President  says.)  And 
that  the  party  could  control  enough  votes  in  Congress 
to  pass  an  act  forbidding  the  certification  to  the  weight 
of  packages  of  corn  or  meal  and  annex  the  condition 
that  corn  whose  weight  has  not  been  so  certified  shall  not 
be  used  for  bread,  under  the  pains  attached  to  felony  for 
disregard  of  such  conditions.*  That  would  be  held  as  a 
piece  of  outrageous  tyranny  and  men  would  take  up  arms 
to  resist  it.  Yet  what  Congress  has  done  in  the  matter 
of  silver,  copying  what  European  governments  have  done, 
is  an  exact  parallel  to  this  supposed  case  in  regard  to  corn- 
bread.  No  government  has  any  more  right  to  restrict  the 
use  of  silver  as  money  than  Indian  corn  as  bread  for  man. 
It  would  be  no  answer  to  tell  them  that  wheat  is  in  all 
respects  better  for  food,  or  to  tell  them  that  the  Asiatics 
will  use  rice  and  so  leave  plenty  of  wheat  for  our  needs, 
as  Wells  says  they  will  use  silkier  and  leave  plenty  of  gold 
for  our  needs. 

Or  take  an  example  from  certain  other  commodities. 
In  the  Arena  Magazine  for  December,  1894,  I  took  the 
case  of  an  ore  of  Colorado  that  is  made  up  of  gold,  silver 

*If  the  president  were  in  such  a  case  to  say  he  is  "a  friend  of 
hoe-cake'"  it  would  be  an  exact  parallel  to  saying  he  is  a  "friend 
of  silver." 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  95 

and  copper,  and  of  which  the  government  has  taken  from 
the  miner  the  natural  right  to  use  silver  as  money,  which 
is  as  much  his  inalienable  right  to  do  as  to  use  his  copper 
for  making  tea  kettles,  which  right  is  still  left  with  him; 
or  of  using  gold  as  money,  which  right  is  still  left  to  him. 
It  limits  the  amount  of  money  material  used;  it  could 
with  equal  right  limit  the  amount  of  tea-kettle  material 
used.  Suppose  we  had  by  our  constitution  agreed  that 
all  "plate"  must  have  a  government  stamp  on  it,  certificate 
of  its  weight  and  fineness,  on  the  plan  of  the  "Hall  mark" 
in  England,  and  no  plate  could  be  made  or  used  without 
such  stamp ;  and  that  after  ninety  years  of  such  stamping 
done  at  the  mere  request  of  the  owners  of  the  plate,  Con- 
gress were  to  enact  that  "plate"  means  gold  plate  only  and 
refuse  to  stamp  any  silver  plate  and  make  it  a  felony  to 
make,  buy  or  exchange  any  silver  in  the  form  of  plate 
without  the  stamp  of  the  government;  that  would  be  i.n 
exact  parallel  to  the  usurpation,  tyranny  and  deprivation 
of  natural  rights  that  a  small  class  has  procured  Congress 
to  commit  in  the  matter  of  silver  money.  It  would  only 
add  insult  to  injury  to  tell  us  that  Europe  has  already  done 
it. 

Thus  it  is  also  seen  that  the  power  of  the  government 
can  never  be  greater  in  respect  to  E,  the  exchanger,  when 
it  stamps  each  piece  for  use  as  money,  than  when  it  leaves 
each  one  to  prove  the  weight  with  scales.  The  exercise 
of  such  power  is  tyranny  and  usurpation.  It  could  with 
equal  justice  be  enacted  that  only  such  gold  and  silver  as 
can  be  weighed  during  one  hour  of  the  day  on  certain 
very  small  scales  is  legal  tender  money  and  the  rest  is  not; 
or  to  enforce  any  other  fantastic  form  of  annoyance  and 
interference  for  the  benefit  of  a  class. 

Men  with  the  natural  instincts  of  slave-drivers,  but  who 
are  kept  from  the  practice  of  plainer  forais  of  slavery, 


96  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

have  taken  the  position  that  the  exchanger  is  soiely  a  crea- 
tion of  fiat;  that  governments  alone  create  it,  and  that 
they  have  the  just  power  to  regulate  its  volume  under 
the  power  of  determining  what  shall  be  group  E,  or  the 
exchanger.  A  specific  limitation  by  legislation  of  the 
volume  of  exchangeable  commodities  pi  educed  would 
at  once  arouse  resistance  and  the  power  attempting  to 
enforce  it  would  be  quickly  swept  away  by  votes  or  arms. 
There  can  be  no  just  power  in  any  government  to  limit 
the  volume  of  nature's  medium  of  exchange,  recognized, 
not  made  by  legislation,  that  is  not  an  interference  with 
the  inalienable  natural  rights  of  man,  no  matter  how  it  is 
done. 

Coinage  by  governments  is  a  late  practice  in  the 
history  of  the  race,  and  only  for  the  convenience  of  the 
individuals,  and  does  not  make  the  rights  of  one  individ- 
ual or  class  less  nor  those  of  others  gi-eater  in  the  slight- 
est degree,  as  compared  with  the  rights  of  individuals  with 
respect  to  the  other  two  groups  of  commodities ;  nor  does 
it  change  the  rights  of  individuals  with  respect  to  the  com- 
modities of  group  E  from  what  they  were  before  the 
time  when  the  stamp  was  put  on  them  as  now,  the  time 
when  they  were  dealt  in  only  by  the  system  of  weights  as 
the  commodities  in  the  other  two  groups  are  still  dealt  in, 
and  when  the  weights  were  not  attested  by  governments, 
but  were  purely  private  affairs. 

We  saw  in  the  first  chapter  the  evolution  of  money,  the 
natural  medium  of  exchange.  The  principals,  the  people, 
in  putting  the  duty  of  coining  upon  Congress,  do  not 
divest  themselves  of  their  natural  right,  they  are  still  ex- 
ercising it,  but  through  an  agent  instead  of  directly.  The 
use  of  an  agent  to  do  the  coining  for  each  individual  dates 
from  the  time  when  division  of  employments  first  arose 
^mong-  metal-using  men  ajid  clans  or  tribes.    Just  as  well 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  97 

might  the  first  private  makers  of  coins  have  refused  to 
smelt  the  ore  and  coin  it  when  brought  to  them  by  other 
men,  and  threatened  them  with  imprisonment  if  they 
coined  it  themselves,  in  order  to  make  their  own  stock 
of  coins  buy  more  of  other  commodities,  as  for  gold-basis 
fiatists  to  exercise  a  similar  tyranny  through  govern- 
ments. And  it  has  been  exercised  in  the  latter  case  for 
that  purpose.  Coining  is  a  right  of  each  sovereign  indi- 
\ridual,  the  exercise  of  which  we  have  put  upon  Congress. 
And  Congress  refuses  to  perform  it  and  claims  the  right 
to  imprison  any  individual  who  resumes  the  exercise  of 
his  natural  right  himself. 

One  of  the  reasons  on  which  rests  the  equality  of  rights 
and  position  between  the  holders  of  the  three  sets  of  com- 
modities— ^the  exchanger  and  the  things  exchanged — is, 
that  the  quantity  or  volume  of  the  medium  of  exchange  in 
use  affects  the  prices  of  raw  materials  and  manufactured 
goods,  and  the  purchasing  power  of  money.  Whoever 
can  change  that  volume  can  change  prices.  Hence  the 
volume  must  be  left  solely  to  nature's  generosity  and  to 
man's  industry  exercised  according  to  his  natural  right. 
*'  *  *  *  It  is  this  tendency  of  an  increased  quan- 
tity of  money  to  raise  prices,  which  forms  the  basis  of  the 
economical  theory  of  the  distribution  of  the  precious 
metals."    (Enc.  Brit.  "Money.") 

The  president  of  a  great  New  York  bank  made  an 
address  at  the  meeting  of  the  "American  Bankers'  Asso- 
ciation" some  years  ago,  in  which  he  depicted  the  vast 
multitudes  coming  in  in  the  morning  past  the  corner  of 
Broadway  and  Fulton  street  and  distributing  themselves 
over  the  city  and  going  to  work.  He  dwelt  on  the-  orderli- 
ness with  which  it  is  done  and  the  content  with  which 
each  one  goes  to  his  task  believing  that  his  work  done  or 
money  invested  will  in  due  time  be  returned  to  him  in 


98  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

a  medium  of  nearly  equal  exchangeable  value  with  what 
it  was  when  the  work  is  done  or  the  investment  made. 
But  he. has  since  gone  squarely  back  from  his  principles 
and  acts  with  those  who  claim  for  Congress  the  power  to 
make  and  unmake  money  at  will,  and  advocates  a  destruc- 
tion of  a  part  of  the  money.  If  his  present  position  is  cor- 
rect the  crowds  that  he  saw  need  commiseration,  for  legis- 
lation may  at  any  time  confiscate  the  fruits  of  their  labor 
under  the  power  to  make  and  unmake  money  at  will. 

The  gold-fiat  argument  is  a  defense  of  some  imagined 
authority  against  natural  right;  as  in  the  case  of  the  divine 
right  of  kings.  Norman's  meaning  is  what  we  are  familiar 
with  under  the  name  of  ''fiat."  But  money  is  not  money 
by  fiat.  It  is  older  than  any  fiat  except  the  fiat  of  nature. 
The  pretense  that  the  fiat  of  England,  Germany  or  any 
monarchy  under  the  slave-whip  of  the  great  money  lend- 
ers, is  to  be  taken  as  evolution  or  the  "practice  and  con- 
sent of  peoples"  is  too  absurd  to  deserve  notice. 

(b)  Governments  can  have  no  just  powers  in  respect 
to  money  except  to  recognize  the  money  of  natural  evolu- 
tion: silver  supplemented  by  gold. 

Norman  asks:  "Have  you  made  up  your  mind  upon 
the  question:  Is  money  anything  but  a  commodity?"  In 
Yankee  style  let  us  answer  his  question  by  asking  an- 
other: "Have  you  made  up  your  mind  that  the  right  of 
man  in  regard  to  the  use  of  commodities  is  one  and  the 
same  throughout?  Can  you  show  any  right  by  which  a 
government  finding  men  using  gold  and  silver  as  money, 
the  medium  of  exchange,  can  forbid  the  use  of  one  of 
them?"  Fiatism  assumes  that  governments  can  justly 
decide  what  commodity  or  commodities  shall  be  the  ex- 
changer, and  may  change  it  or  them  at  will.  They  try  to 
make  it  appear,  as  we  have  seen  that  the  change  made 
from  the  use  of  natural  money  in  Europe  is  a  natural 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  99 

evolution.  If,  as  so  many  of  them  say,  this  group  (E) 
was  once  cattle  (pecus,  a  flock;  genitive  pecoris,  hence 
"pecuniary")  they  could  conceivably  be  made  so  again. 
Then  gold,  which  they  say  now  alone,  forms  group  E  and 
is  the  sole  exchanger,  could  be  displaced  and  shoved  aside 
into  the  group  of  raw  materials.  If  cattle  ever  formed 
group  E,  if  they  were  e^'^er  money,  if  they  were  ever  the 
medium  of  the  exchange  of  the  other  commodities;  and 
if  governments  can  ever  have  the  just  power  to  make  one 
thing  money  by  fiat  and  demonetize  what  was  money 
before  it,  then  they  had  a  right,  after  a  crop  of  steers  had 
become  such  full  legal  tender,  thereupon  to  issue  a  new 
fiat  order  that  this  year  only  red  steers  are  money.  And 
then  when  contracts  for  payment  of  money  (red  steers 
understood)  had  been  vastly  multiplied,  fiat  could  declare 
that  brindle  cows  alone  are  money.  The  pretense  that  red 
steers  are  not  and  brindle  cows  are  the  "money  suited  to 
a  people  of  high  civilization"  (as,  for  instance,  those  who 
had  learned  to  eat  butter  and  cheese  as  well  as  beef)  would 
be  the  same  justification  that  Lords  Liverpool,  Wells 
and  Cleveland  give. 

Norman  says  money  is  the  "standard  substance  appro- 
priated to  currency  purposes."  That  it  is  "a  conditioned 
thing  by  the  consent  and  practice  of  peoples,  buttressed 
by  legislative  enactments."  He  says:  "The  standard  sub- 
stance say  gold  or  silver — it  is  not  limited  to  these;  any 
other  substance  might  be  chosen,"  etc.  This  is  pure 
fiatism,  yet  his  American  followers  have  long  reproached 
those  who  hold  for  the  money  of  nature  with  being  fiat- 
ists.  The  President  says  almost  in  so  many  words  that 
as  to  what  is  money  we  must  let  the  European  monarchies 
settle  for  us;  or  rather  he  virtually  says  they  have  set- 
tled it  for  us  and  we  must  obey.  Their  ideal  of  the  money 
quality  in  the  metals  and  of  the  rights  of  man  are  that 
legislation  gave  and  legislation  can  take  awaj. 


100  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

Trenholm  tries  to  make  the  point  that  we  were  on  a 
"gold  basis"  from  1834  to  1862.  It  makes  no  difference 
what  "basis"  we  have  been  on  heretofore,  the  time  has 
come  when  we  must  get  on  the  basis  of  natural  rights.  We 
will  then  do  business  with  money,,  not  merely  think  of  it 
as  in  existence  somewhere  in  the  world  and  keep  up  the 
fiction  that  it  is  the  "basis"  of  a  currency  in  the  control  of 
those  who  neither  create  nor  own  it,  but  who  charge 
hire  fcr  its  use  by  those  who  both  create  and  own  it. 

In  combatting  these  principles  the  gold-basis  fiatists 
will  perhaps  answer,  "Then  any  one  may  use  anything 
for  group  E;  any  one  may  use  anything  he  may  choose 
as  money."  So  he  may  use  anything  as  a  medium  of  ex- 
change, if  he  can  get  others  to  take  it.  But  there  is 
only  one  common  medium  of  exchange  furnished  us  by 
nature,  and  that  is  silver  supplemented  by  gold.  We 
have  just  seen  the  history  of  its  evolution.  Millenniums 
of  experiment  have  settled  this.  Its  unit  is  a  weight-unit 
and  it  is  only  with  its  weight  and  fineness  that  govern- 
ments have  to  do,  and  that  only  by  delegation  of  power. 
What  shall  be  the  exchanger  nature  has  settled.  Chang- 
ing the  thing  used  as  the  medium  of  exchange  also 
changes  its  volume  in  the  present  case. 

The  constitutional  power  to  coin  money  gives  the  Fed- 
eral Government  no  more  control  over  the  question  of 
what  material  shall  be  coined  into  money  or  how  much 
shall  be  coined  than  the  power  to  estabHsh  a  uniform 
system  of  weights  and  measures  gives  it  the  power  to  dic- 
tate what  may  be  weighed  and  measured  and  how  much 
of  each  commodity  may  be  weighed  and  measured — 
and  forbid  some  uses  of  the  things  not  weighed  and  meas- 
ured. The  money  of  nature  adopted  by  custom  cannot  be 
changed  by  legislation.    It  can  only  be  changed  by  nature 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPflY.  101 

and  custom;  and  chemistry  and  geology  answer  that  it 
will  never  be  done.  If  any  nation  or  all  nations  go  into 
socialism  the  record  of  each  individual's  services  may  be 
kept  otherwise  than  by  money.  But  in  the  individualistic 
stage  and  form  of  social  organisms  money  of  gold  and 
silver  alone  have  a  place.  "The  possession  by  both  these 
metals  of  all  the  qualities  needed  in  money  is  more  briefly, 
but  forcibly  put  by  Cantillon  when  he  says  that  'gold  and 
silver  alone  are  of  small  volume,  of  equal  goodness,  easy 
of  transport,  divisible  without  loss,  easily  guarded,  beau- 
tiful and  brilliant,  and  durable  almost  to  eternity.'  This 
view  has  even  been  pushed  to  an  extreme  form  in  the  pro- 
position of  Turgot,  that  they  become  universal  money  by 
the  nature  and  force  of  things,  independently  of  all  con- 
vention and  law  from  which  the  deduction  has  been  drawn 
that  to  proscribe  silver  by  law  is  a  violation  of  the  nature 
of  things."*    (Enc.  Brit.  "Money.") 

It  is  to  avoid  the  corollary  that  the  commodity  used  as 
the  exchanger  of  other  commodities  must  be  on  the  same 
footing  as  those  that  it  exchanges,  in  the  matter  of  liberty 
to  produce  it  and  the  right  to  use  it  as  such  exchanger 
without  limitation,,  that  gold-basis  fiatists  assume  and 
teach  that  there  must  be  a  "standard  of  value,"  and  that  it 
is  the  prerogative  of  governments  to  establish  such  stand- 
ard and  change  it.  The  basic  vice  of  gold-fiatism's  doc- 
trine that  there  will  be  enough  gold  for  us  even  if  silver 
were  demonetized  is  the  same  as  that  of  the  fiatists  of  the 
opposite   school — the   Greenbackers.     No   one   is   wise 

*Cantillon,  and  Turgot  (finance  minister  of  Louis  XVI.)  could 
not  have  given  the  details  of  this  found  herein  in  the  first 
chapter,  and  the  proofs  given  by  word-lore  could  not  have  been 
had  in  their  day,  as  only  the  better  knowledge  of  Old  Norse  and 
the  excavations  in  the  buried  cities  of  Chaldea  and  Babylonia 
have  brought  them  to  light  and  use.  So  much  the  more  to 
their  credit  tUat  without  these  aids  the^  found  the  truth, 


102  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

enough  to  tell  how  much  money  the  world  or  any  one 
country  in  it  needs,  nor  has  he  or  any  others  the  right  to 
limit  if  it  he  were.  For  man's  rights  in  regard  to  the 
medium  of  exchange,  itself  a  commodity,  are  on  the  same 
footing  as  with  respect  to  the  commodities  that  it  ex- 
changes. 

(c)  This  grouping  of  the  commodities  that  make  up  the 
mass  of  things  that  man  produces  and  exchanges  shows 
that  the  money  question  is  not  one  of  expediency,  but  of 
right,  of  morals.  The  array  of  figures  made  to  show  that 
gold-fiatism  would  pay  better  is  on  exactly  the  same  foot- 
ing as  those  who  defended  slavery  on  the  ground  that  it 
was  more  profitable  than  free  labor. 

Legislation  ought  to  align  itself  by  the  body  of  the 
natural  rights  of  man,  and  we  are  supposed  to  do  it  in 
this  country.  But  in  practice  a  party,  or  its  machine 
managers,  bought  by  great  money-grabbing  organiza- 
tions, aligns  the  natural  rights  of  man  according  to  the 
desires  of  its  money-grabbing  principals,  walking  over 
men  and  their  natural  rights  rough-shod.  And  Pompous 
University  Ignorance  in  the  service  of  Plutocracy,  with 
a  great  show  of  pretended  wisdom,  defends  it  in  books 
and  magazines  and  newspapers,  and  on  the  lecture  plat- 
form. There  is  an  unique  school  of  political  economists, 
headed  in  America  by  David  A.  Wells  and  Wm.  G.  Sum- 
ner, believing  in  free  production  and  exchange  of  raw 
material  for  manufactures,  but  in  a  fiat-restricted  volume 
of  the  exchanger.  They  are  liberals  or  advocates  of  nat- 
ural rights  at  the  two  ends  and  restrictionists  in  the  mid- 
dle of  their  political  economy.  Double-headed  economic 
prodigies,  or  economic  freaks,  as  I  have  named  them  in 
the  Arena.  (December,  1894.) 

One  of  them,  Mr.  Morton,  works  for  free  trade  with 
England.    But  free  trade  ought  to  be  reciprocal   England 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  103 

IS  not  a  free  trade  country.  It  is  a  restrictionist  country 
on  the  use  of  silver  as  money,  just  as  Mr.  Morton  and 
Wells  and  Sumner  are.*  It  is  likely  that  the  gravest 
charge  that  can  be  laid  to  Mr.  Morton  is  that  he  tries  to 
teach  without  first  learning. 

Money  forms  a  very  small  part  of  the  wealth  of  the 
wealthy.  What  is  the  greater  part  of  such  wealth?  It  is 
bonds.  The  existing  mass  of  bonds  is  a  vast  demand  for 
and  agreement  to  pay  a  part  of  the  product  of  their  labors 
by  certain  others,  and  the  product  is  to  be  quoted  in 
money.  The  movement  now  called  gold  monometallism 
is  a  plan  by  which  the  holders  of  the  bonds  change  the 
conditions  of  the  bonds  so  as  to  make  the  debtors  pay 
more  than  they  owe  without  changing  the  verbal  terms 
of  the  bonds.  It  takes  from  the  debtors  (whether  as  indi- 
viduals or  communities)  more  than  they  agreed  to  pay, 
and  that  against  their  will.  It  is  theft  on  the  part  of  the 
creditors  and  slavery  on  the  part  of  the  debtors.  It  is 
greed  keeping  back  the  \Vorld^s  civilization.  The  other 
form  of  slavery  had  the  excuse  that  whilst  it  kept  back 
the  civilization  of  the  whites  it  rather  seemed  to  help  on 
the  civilization  of  the  negroes. 

In  his  article  in  Forum,  October,  1893,  Wells  says: 
"The  first  and  great  object  of  what  is  termed  civiHzation 
is  to  increase  the  abundance  of  things  material;  to  give 
to  the  masses  a  greater  control  and  use  of  the  essentials 
of  living  and  comfort  with  a  decreased  effort  of  labor  or 
expenditure  of  capital,"  etc.     Who  is  to  "give  to  the 

*As  will  be  shown  further  on  the  purpose  of  gold-flatism  is 
not  to  make  gold  the  only  thing  in  group  E — the  only  medium 
of  exchange.  Their  purpose  is  to  get  rid  of  group  E  and  to 
make  the  owners  of  the  other  two  groups — of  all  property — 
mortgage  it  to  them,  make  them  a  present  of  notes  based  on  the 
mortgage  and  agree  to  borrow  the  notes  back  at  an  average 
of  ten  per  cent. 


104  THE  FINANCIAL  FHILOSOPttY. 

masses"  all  of  that?    Is  it  possible  that  we  have  here  our 
venerable   teacher   Monseigneur   Laissez    Faire   Wells? 
Must  we  get  some -of  his  own  free  trade  teachings  to  show 
him  that  he  has  only  to  let  "the  masses"  alone  with  their 
natural  rights  and  they  will  use  as  much  of  the  "esentials 
of  living  and  comfort"  as  they  want,  given  them  by  our 
mother,  the  earth.    He  ought  to  have  said  that  the  object 
of  civilization  is  "to  increase  the  abundance  of  things  ma- 
terial"— except  money.    His  doctrine  as  to  the  latter  is  the 
same  as  that  given  by  a  firm  of  brokers  in  Baltimore, 
spokesmen   of   the   last   Bankers'   Association   meeting 
there,  that  bankers  must  settle  the  money  question,  not 
laborers.    But  when  the  laborers  apply  the  same  doctrine 
to  the  labor  question  the  bankers  do  not  agree  to  it,  and 
the  bankers'  agent,  the  President,  answers  them  by  ask- 
ing an  increase  of  the  army  to  kill  the  laborers  more 
rapidly.     A  teacher  whom  Wells  and  all  other  fiatists 
could  read  with  profit  defined  civilization  differently.    He 
said  "a  man's  life  consisteth  not  in  the  abundance  of  the 
things  that  he  hath."     The  Icelanders  are  to-day  the  most 
civilized  people  in  the  world.    But  the  criterion  of  civiliza- 
tion is»  what  a  person  is  and  what  he  does,  as  Jesus  meant; 
not  what  he  has,  without  respect  to  how  he  got  it,  as 
Wells  means.   The  Icelanders  are  probably  the  most  near- 
ly pure  Aryans  in  the  world ;  the  neo-English,  who  are 
Wells'  pattern  in  all  things,  are,  as  shown  by  late  devel- 
opments, more  mixed  with  non-Aryan  elements  than  any 
who  bear  the  name.    We  ought  to  try  to  bring  forth  a 
civilization  that  can  build  magnificent  structures  other- 
wise than  most  of  those  of  the  world — as  monuments  to 
Greed,  Slavery,  Theft. 

Norman  shows  plainly  that  he  has  no  other  idea  of 
money  than  what  law  in  each  nation  declares  to  be  money, 
and  that  the  power  so  to  declare  is  unlimited  in  each 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  105 

nation.  Wells,  Morton  and  other  American  followers  do 
not  locate  the  source  as  Norman  does:  to  locate  it  an- 
swers it  to  true  Americans.  They  hide  it  in  the  cloud  of 
the  opinion  of  statesmen  and  "thoughtful"  men  in  nations 
of  ''high"  civilization  (such  as  England's  "high,"  as  meat 
is  called  "high,"  a  polite  name  for  rotten.)  One  of  Nor- 
man's reasons  for  being  against  bi-metalHsm  is  that  it  is 
unjust  to  "fund-holders,"  bond-holders,  debt-holders. 
That  itself  condemns  monometallism,  for  it  only  exists  in 
England  since  1816,  and  was  brought  about  on  the  de- 
mand of  the  creditors  without  asking  the  debtors.  The 
terms  of  the  contract  were  changed.  The  best  thing  to 
do,  the  only  just  thing,  is  to  change  them  back.  The 
"fund-holders"  have  been  getting  more  than  their  just 
right  since  1816.  It  would.be  little  enough  for  them  to 
stop  taking  it,  to  say  nothing  of  giving  back  what  they 
have  had  unjustly.  It  is  because  these  metals  are  used  for 
other  purposes  that  they  are  used  as  money.  The  fact 
that  there  is  three  times  as  much  used  for  other  purposes 
as  for  money,  and  their  money  use  makes  the  price  of 
them  when  measured  in  other  things — other  things  being 
the  same — fairly  steady.  Hence,  if  the  price  of  silver  as 
compared  with  other  things  were  falling,  for  the  reasons 
given  by  the  conspirators,  or  for  any  reason,  it  would  not 
have  first  shown  in  the  portion  of  the  world's  supply  of 
it  devoted  to  money  use,  but  rather  in  the  failing  love  of 
people  for  it  in  the  esthetic  uses  -hitherto  made  of  it,  and 
in  the  using  of  other  things  in  its  place  for  its  utilitarian 
purposes.  None  of  these  has  happened.  Asia  swallows 
up  an  increasing  quantity.  It  is  as  beautiful  to  the  eye,  as 
gratifying  to  the  esthetic  sense  as  ever.  Its  utilitarian  pur- 
poses are  certainly  not  decreasing  anywhere  in  the  world; 
they  are  certainly  increasing  with  the  increase  of  popula- 
tion and  by  the  increase  in  the  number  of  purposes  for 


106  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOS0l>ttY. 

which  it  is  used.  The  fact  that  silver  buUion  keeps  stead- 
ily along  with  the  general  mass  of  commodities  proves 
that  the  demand  for  it,  its  estimation  in  the  minds  of  men, 
is  unchanged.  That  the  pretended  change  in  its  status 
is  proclaimed  by  those  who  are  trying  to  "bear"  it  is  proof 
of  their  dishonesty  in  the  case,  and  of  the  unreality  of  the 
change  that  they  pretend  has  taken  place  in  the  minds 
of  men  in  their  estimation  of  it.  If  the  ideas  of  mankind 
were  to  change  radically  on  the  subject  of  beauty,  and  if 
two  other  elements  were  to  be  found  that  would  better 
serve  the  utilitarian  purposes  that  gold  and  silver  do  they 
might  become  two  of  the  most  useless  forms  of  matter, 
and  the  labor  and  material  given  for  them  would  be  a 
dead  loss.  There  is  a  far  higher  probability  that  a  comet 
will  strike  the  earth  and  destroy  mankind  on  it  than  that 
this  will  ever  happen.  Nobody  knows  this  better  than 
the  conspirators  themselves.  They  know  that  the  time 
will  again  come  when  the  bullion  "beared"  in  price  will  be 
again  called  for  and  used.  They  will  have  large  amounts 
of  it  already  in  their  possession  bought  at  the  "bear"  prices 
to  which  they  will  -have  sent  it  and  more  yet  that  they  will 
have  bought,  knowing  that  its  day  must  come  again.  The 
only  great  and  immediate  supply  will  be  in  their  hands 
and  they  will  command  their  own  price  for  it.  They  wan* 
to  make  a  corner  in  silver  bullion  and  another  in  gold 
money. 

If  we  had  really  reached  the  point  in  human  evolution 
that  the  confiscators  of  labor  and  property  under  forms 
of  law  say  that  we  have ;  if  the  fraudulent  and  conspiracy- 
made  London  quotations  of  silver  bullion  told  truly  a  fact, 
it  would  be  the  fact  of  the  most  tremendous  significance  in 
the  history  of  the  human  race.  It  would  mean  the  doom 
of  the  era  of  individualism  and  the  dawn  of  the  social  era. 
Weston  noted  that  the  disuse  of  silver  meant  the  disuse  of 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  107 

gold  later  on.  Price  dimly  saw  the  Nemesis  that  threatens 
England  and  all  other  gold-fiat  countries  by  counterfeits 
of  their  silver  token  coins  (redeemable)  exactly  like  the 
originals  in  weight,  fineness  and  looks.  That  the  quo- 
tations of  silver  bullion  by  the  English  bosses  of  the  Amer- 
ican conspirators  against  our  constitution  are  fraudulent 
is  explained  by  Sibley,  who  showed  that  their  profit  on 
demonetization  is  so  great  that  they  could  afford  to  buy 
our  whole  silver  product  from  year  to  year  and  sink  it  in 
the  sea.  But  if  the  use  of  money  ever  ceases  through 
socialism  it  will  be  the  last  feature  of  the  individualistic 
system  to  disappear,  not,  as  so  many  seem  to  think,  the 
first.  Socialists  working  on  new  money  systems  are  be- 
ginning at  the  wrong  end.  They  are  laboriously  trying 
to  do  what  will  do  itself  if  socialism  comes. 

Some  of  the  bravest  leaders  in  this  last  great  anti- 
slavery  battle,  notably  Bland,  Jones  and  St.  John,  have 
made  the  radical  mistake  of  saying  that  money  is  the 
creature  of  law.  As  we  saw,  that  was  disproved  by  the 
study  of  its  evolution.  And  here  we  see  by  another  form 
of  demonstration  the  grossness  of  the  error,  and  the 
impregnability  of  our  position  is  made  clear.  That  is 
on  a  par  with  the  claim  that  the  constitution  recognized 
chattel-slavery.  It  did  not  make  the  slightest  difference  in 
the  question  of  man's  natural  right  to  himself  whether 
it  recognized  it  or  not.  We  have  enacted  that  slavery 
shall  never  exist  in  this  republic;  let  us  enact  that  that 
enactment  shall  not  be  evaded  by  making  and  unmaking 
money.  We  took  black  men  out  of  one  form  of  slavery 
and  put  them  and  their  masters  in  another.  Let  us  free 
them  all,  for  all  time  to  come. 

In  regard  to  man's  natural  right  to  a  natural  and  un- 
restricted volivme  of  the  natural  medium  of  exchange  it  is 
only  necessary  to  clearly  state  the  question  to  see  that 


108  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY 

it  is  one  that  does  not  admit  of  debate.  There  is  but  one 
side  to  it.  A  "standard,"  or  "standard  measure,"  is  only  a 
criterion  by  which  other  things  are  judged  with  respect  to 
their  quaHty  of  the  same  kind  that  the  criterion  or  model 
has  as  its  essence,  and  detennined  by  authority.  What  is 
the  "authority?"  In  respect  to  orthodoxy  in  religion,  in 
correctness  of  spelling,  etc.,  etc.,  they  are  various,  as  we 
know.  In  regard  to  value,  exchangeability,  the  only 
sense  in  which  there  is  a  "standard,"  or  "standard  meas- 
ure," i.  e.,  a  thing  in  which  the  price  is  quoted,  legislation 
must  settle  it.  But  the  power  of  legislation  in  the  case,  as 
in  all  that  concerns  human  rights,  is  declaratory  only. 
The  position  of  Cleveland,  Trenholm  and  the  other  fiat- 
ists  is  that  it  is  located  in  London,  and  we  must  obey  it. 
If  England  declare  silver  the  standard  to-morrow  and 
demonetize  gold  we  must  follow. 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  109 


CHAPTER  IV. 

LEGAL  TENDER  ACTS. 

The  question  of  legal  tender  acts  follows  naturally  up- 
on the  last  chapter. 

(a)  From  the  impregnable  position  gained  in  the  last 
chapter  it  is  clear  that  legal  tender  acts  cannot  limit  money, 
but  money  limits  legal  tender  legislation.  "Legal"  is  from 
Latin  lex,  law.  What  is  law?  Remember  Max  Muller's 
saying  that  the  best  definition  of  a  word  is  its  history. 

We  should  never  blindly  follow  any  teacher,  but  always 
use  our  own  reason.  Few  men  have  done  as  much  for 
word-lore,  and  especially  have  thrown  such  light  on  our 
language,  as  Cleasby,  the  Englishman,  and  Vigfusson, 
the  Icelander,  with  their  great  dictionary  of  Old  Norse. 
But  they  were  misled  by  the  analogy  of  High  German  (a 
modern  and  derived  language)  in  this  case.  The  word 
log  (plural),  law,  i.  e.,  laws,  is  given  under  lag,  said  to  be 
from  leggja  (j  is  as  y.)  Lag  means  first,  "stratum," 
"layer."  Leggja  is  "a  causal  of  Hggja,  to  lie."  They  say 
"log"  (in  the  plural  only),  "properly  what  is  laid;  com- 
pare German  gesetz.  *  *  *  English  law  seems  to  be 
a  Scandinavian  word,  for  German  and  Saxon  use  other 
words.  Danish  lov.  Swedish  lag."  Ligja,  to  lie,  is  the 
older  idea;  legja,  to  lay  (transitive),  to  cause  to  lie,  a 
derived  idea  from  the  other.  German  gesetz,  law,  means 
something  set  (equivalent  to  laid)  by  some  agency.  Le 
Droit,  the  French  for  "law,"  tells  what  law  is:  Right. 
Law  and  right  are  one  and  the  same.    Law  is  not  made, 


110  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

or  set,  or  placed  by  any  agency.  Law  means  the  body 
of  the  rights  of  man,  that  lie  in  place  of  themselves  from 
everlasting  unto  everlasting,  even  though  their  exercise 
be  hindered.  When  Congress  or  a  legislature,  or  the 
English  Parliament,  or  the  French  Chambers,  or  the  Ger- 
man Reichstag,  or  any  other  legislative  body,  passes  a 
bill  that  is  against  natural  right,  it  is  not  a  law,  and  when 
they  call  it  such  they  lie,  in  another  sense.  Governments 
have  no  rights,  the  rights  all  belong  to  the  individuals; 
and  governments  are  only  agencies  for  enforcing  them. 
The  dictionary  makers  failed  to  get  the  nature  of  the  word 
"law,"  not  knowing  the  nature  of  law.  That  this  is  the 
nature  of  law  and  that  it  was  so  understood  by  our  fathers, 
proof  shall  follow. 

Whilst  it  is  to  our  Declaration  of  Independence  that 
we  go  for  the  statement  of  the  rights  of  man,  it  is  in  the 
literature  of  the  Northmen  in  Iceland  that  we  get  some 
of  the  earliest  history  of  them  as  held  to  by  our  ancestors 
and  kin.  DuChaillu  says  that  our  government  is  more 
like  that  of  the  Northmen  than  any  other  that  now  is.  In 
the  references  to  life  in  Iceland  in  the  Appendix  to  the 
Corpus  Poeticum  Boreale  of  Yorke  and  Powell,  we  read: 
"In  the  midst  of  seething  life  of  the  sixty  years  of  settle- 
ment, a  little  knot  of  the  earliest,  most  reputable  and 
noblest  settlers  banded  together  for  law  and  order,  and 
held  a  league-moot,  as  we  might  call  it,  at  Keelness;  their 
influence  spread,  till  probably  they  were  joined  by  most  of 
the  chiefs  in  the  Southwest  and  South.  At  last  a  general 
feeling,  fostered  by  their  success  and  peace,  arises  else- 
where as  to  the  desirability  of  a  general  moot  and  one 
constitution  for  the  whole  country.  WoMiot,  the  North- 
man, is  the  link  by  which  the  new  and  good  Constitution 
of  Gula,  which  has  become  famous,  was  brought  out  to 
Iceland  with  necessary  modifications.      *        *      *      (p, 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  Ill 

496.)  In  considering  these  questions  it  is  most  needful 
here  to  state  that  the  view  of  even  the  best  and  most 
learned  continental  writers  on  these  matters  is  biased  by 
their  inveterate  conception  of  law  as  a  code,  of  law-mak- 
ers as  parliamentary  orators  and  Bureaucrats — statesmen 
of  modern  days,  everlastingly  proposing,  emending  and 
digesting  statutes.  Law  in  old  times  is  Custom,  the  legis- 
lator is  the  man  who  makes  or  recommends  the  neces- 
sary machinery  for  getting  this  Custom-Law  observed. 
*  *  *  What  the  chiefs  of  Iceland  wanted  from  Wol- 
fliot  was  not  a  code — they  knew  the  law  of  were  geeild,* 
of  inheritance,  and  the  like ;  what  they  did  lack  was  means 
for  having  it  enforced,  and  for  putting  an  end  to  the  con- 
flict of  customs  which  inevitably  arise  when  men  of  dif- 
ferent districts  are  brought  face  to  face.  Wolfliot  brings 
them  over  the  plan  of  the  machinery  which  Thorlaf  had 
devised  and  set  up;  not  a  code,  but  a  constitution. 

Englishmen  and  Americans  can  understand  this  easily 
enough ;  but  as  they  are  liable  to  be  misled  in  such  mat- 
ters when  they  find  eminent  authorities  and  good  schol- 
ars talking  of  codes,  and  law-making,  and  legislative  ma- 
chinery, and  the  like  in  this  connection,  we  do  not  deem 
it  out  of  place  to  give  them  a  word  of  warning.  *  *  * 
Law,  like  religion,  is  too  often  supposed  to  lie,  not  in  life, 
but  in  books."  C.  P.  B.  2,  p.  497-8.  This  equally  well 
serves  as  a  description  of  the  rise  of  many  an  ante-revolu- 
tionary American  community,  or  their  rise  in  the  terri- 
tories, as  well  as  of  the  management  of  the  affairs  by 
miners  in  mining  districts  where  there  is  as  yet  no  statu- 
tory law;  and  these  miners'  customs  are  recognized  and 
declared  law  by  Congress.  We  thus  automatically  fall 
into  self-government  no  matter  where  a  lot  of  us  drop 

♦The  price  paid  to  a  family  or  clan  for  killing  a  man  belong- 
ing to  it. 


112  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

down,  and  it  is  by  respecting  natural  rights.  We  have 
learned  that  unrest  can  be  quieted  and  equilibrium  and 
peace  maintained  by  respecting  each  other's  rights.  Our 
customs  have  that  corner-stone,  and  customs  are  recog- 
nized by  legislatures.  "The  world  itself  is  clear  and  sim- 
ple and  right;  we  ourselves  only  derange  and  huddle  and 
muddle  it,''  says  Max  Muller.  Those  who  do  this  in  poli- 
tics do  it  by  interfering  with  natural  rights.  With  too 
many  the  idea  of  the  beginning  and  constituting  of  a 
nation  is  that  of  a  young  couple  starting  in  housekeeping. 
It's  congress  arranges  for  courts  of  justice,  tax-gathering, 
postofifices,  etc.,  and  finally  selects  or  invents  a  money 
system  as  the  couple  might  choose  a  particular  range,  or 
stove,  or  use  the  old-fas'hioned  fire-place  to  cook  by,  just 
as  they  see  fit.  We  cannot  too  often  repeat,  too  persistent- 
ly remind,  that  the  social  organism  is  no  more  a  machine 
to  be  manufactured,  changed  and  patched  from  time  to 
time  than  its  units  are  such  machines.  Or,  as  Spencer  has 
it,  the  purpose  of  governments  being  to  preserve  natural 
rights  we  do  not  begin  th^  formation  of  governments  by 
surrendering  rights.  W'e  have  millions  of  citizens  who 
seem  to  think  that  there  is  the  same  propriety  and  the 
same  right  in  setting  out  an  old  financial  system  and  set- 
ting in  a  new  one  that  there  is  in  taking  out  the  gas  in  the 
public  buildings  in  Washington  and  putting  electricity 
in  its  place,  or  in  taking  out  a  steam  heating  system  and 
putting  in  hot  water  heaters.  Without  any  knowledge 
of  the  science  of  money  one  national  banker,  using  the 
public  credit  gratis  in  the  guise  of  bank  currency,  says: 
"Let  these  mine-owners  sell  their  silver  in  the  market 
for  what  it  will  bring";  and  a  blinded  merchant  or  farmer 
will  say:  *T  am  in  favor  of  the  free  coinage  of  the  Amer- 
ican product."  The  continuance  of  the  use  of  the  only 
two  substances  fit  for  money  is  a  right  that  no  majority 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  113 

can  take  away  from  the  minority  without  committing  a 
crime.  The  onjy  way  for  either  or  both  of  these  metals 
to  cease  to  be  money  is  by  natural  decline  in  exchangeable 
value ;  which  legislation  could  then  recognize.  Such  de- 
cline has  never  occurred,  and  there  is  not  the  slightest 
reason  to  believe  that  it  ever  will.  The  apparent  decline  in 
bullion  price  of  silver,  fraudulent  and  tyvanny-made,  is 
a  wrong  committed  by  those  who  afterw^ard  plead  it  for 
their  own  benefit,  which  every  one  is  estopped  by  nature, 
by  Custom-Law,  from  doing.  It  is  not  a  fact  in  political 
economy.    In  that  it  counts  for  nothing.  ^ 

It  is  said  that  "revolutions  never  go  backward."  All 
revolutions  in  the  interest  of  human  rights  are  going 
backward  to  the  form  of  society  in  which  original  equality 
of  rights  shall  be  re-established. 

Law  among  our  fathers  was  custom.  What  was  cus- 
tom? Custom  grew  along  the  lines  of  least  resistance. 
Our  fathers  were  intelligent  enough  to  know  that  the 
fruits  of  a  man's  labor  belong  to  him,  and  were  strong 
enough  to  defend  their  own.  Custom  was  but  a  word 
meaning  habitual  recognition  of  natural  rights  among 
the  members  of  each  community.* 

It  is  likely  that  the  reason  that  the  laws  of  the  Medes  and 
Persians  were  unchangeable  came  from  the  ancient  Aryan 
idea  of  law  as  an  official  declaration  of  natural  rights. 
After  the  Aryan  degeneration  in  Asia  and  usurpation  of 
power  by  kings,  the  tradition  and  practice  in  the  matter  of 
the  unchangeableness  of  law  stayed  in  the  minds  of  the 
nation  long  after  the  essence  of  applied  law  was  gone  and 
the  will  of  the  king  had  taken  the  place  of  understanding 
of  the  nature  of  law  and  declaration  of  it. 

♦They  held  slaves,  prisoners  taken  in  war,  on  the  theory  that 
the  gods  decided  the  fate  of  those  who  went  into  battle.  We 
held  slaves  because  they  were  sons  of  Ham,  condemned  by  God 
to  everlasting  slavery,  as  believed. 


114  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

Nothing  ever  written  so  comes  home  to  us  in  financial 
discussions  as  that  gleam  of  the  'light  of  other  days"  that 
comes  from  our  free  fathers  through  Iceland.  Conspira- 
tors have  acted  on  the  assumption  that  they  have  unlimit- 
ed right  to  legislate  about  money  in  a  department  in  which 
they  have  absolutely  none;  and  having  done  it,  they  are 
on  no  other  footing  in  our  ship  of  state  than  pirates  who 
have  captured  a  richly-laden  vessel  and  are  plundering  it. 

(b)  The  editor  of  the  Century  Magazine,  August,  1894, 
says:  "No  one  can  examme  the  historical  evidence  upon 
this  point  and  not  be  convinced  that  every  act  of  legal 
tender  has  been  passed  to  force  into  circulation  a  form 
of  money  that  otherwise  would  not  circulate  at  all."  It  is 
folly  to  say  that  the  greenbacks  would  not  have  circulated 
at  all  but  for  the  legal  tender  act.  And  his  statement  is 
one-sided.  Sherman's  Rothschild  Act  of  1873  was  made 
to  force  out  of  circulation  what  would  circulate  unless  so 
forced  out.  If  f^^om  natural  causes  and  notwithstanding 
the  recognition  by  legislation,  silver  had  fallen  greatly 
in  purchasing  power  and  shown  a  tendency  to  continue 
falling,  it  might  have  been  a  case  demanding  action.  But 
no  such  thing  has  happened.  It  is  more  likely  that  a 
comet  will  strike  the  earth  than  that  this  will  happen. 
What  has  been  done  by  conspiracy  might  quite  as  well 
have  been  done  to  gold  bullion  and  have  affected  it  the 
same  way.  Bonamy  Price  asked  (Iniernat.  Rev.,  Septem- 
ber, 1880):  ''What  then  is  money?  How  came  it  to  be 
born  into  the  world?"  One  is  hopeful  at  this  point  that 
he  has  seen  that  the  use  of  money  as  the  means  of  ex- 
changing is  an  evolution.  But  the  hope  leaves  one  as 
he  reads  from  him:  "Direct  barter  would  have  brought 
human  life  to  a  standstill;  and  so  money  was  invented 
as  a  machine  for  escaping  from  the  deadlock."  This  is 
the  "carpenter  theory"  introduced  into  finance.    He  con- 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  115 

tinues:  "We  see  plainly  what  money  is  and  what  it  does. 
It  is  an  instrument  for  exchanging  two  articles — the  s-heep 
and  the  coat — for  each  other."  "It  was  created  for  that 
purpose  only;  it  is  appUed  to  no  other."  Here  is  fiatism 
pure  and  simple.  The  money  of  nature,  adopted  by  cus- 
tom, cannot  be  justly  changed  by  legislation. 

Price's  statement  that  money  was  created  for  exchang- 
ing and  is  applied  to  no  other  use  is  historically  erroneous, 
and  it  ignores  the  fact  that  these  metals  are  money  only 
because  they  have  other  uses.  If  human  taste  were  to 
change  so  as  not  to  admire  them  for  esthetic  uses  and  if 
some  other  substance  or  substances  were  to  completely 
take  the  place  that  they  fill  for  utilitarian  purposes  they 
would  be  as  valueless  in  the  market  as  sea  water. 

The  English  novelists  have  made  us  familiar  with  the 
figure  of  the  uncle  who  comes  home  from  India  with  a 
large  fortune  and  a  diseased  liver,  the  former  of  which  he 
invests  in  "the  funds,"  and  for  a  companion  to  the  latter 
gets  a  gouty  foot  by  drinking  fine  wines.  The  real  life 
original  of  this  interesting  person  so  fills  Mr.  Norman^s 
eye  that  his  idea  of  a  primer  of  the  science  of  money  is 
one  that  will  teach  the  rising  generation  that  that  science 
is  the  art  of  making  the  fund-holder's  coupon  always  buy 
■a  little  more  one  year  than  it  did  the  year  before. 

Norman  says  that  money  is  a  means  of  payment. 
Money  must  be  suited  for  making  any  payment,  else  it 
is  not  money.  Gold  is  only  a  means  of  payment  in  some 
cases.  Most  of  the  payments  made  could  not  be  made 
with  gold  at  all.  We  will  be  long  in  working  out  a  science 
of  money  if  we  follow  Norman,  Bonamy  Price,  MacLeod, 
Wells  and  their  smaller  imitators;  for  they  have  so  far 
only  succeeded  in  telling  us  the  art  of  creating  what  might 
be  called  a  bob-tailed  medium  of  exchange.  No  science 
is  possible  under  their  definitions.  Price  asked  "how  was 


116  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

money  born  into  the  world?"  and  in  answering  it  calls 
money  a  tool.  Tools  are  not  born,  they  are  made.  Money 
was  born  of  nature;  man  did  not  make  it.  The  latter- 
day  English  and  the  American  financial  Anglo-maniacs 
have  mistaken  art  for  science.  Their  idea  of  law  to  cor- 
respond with  that  ought  to  be  whatever  the  ''sovereign 
power"  puts  into  statutory  form.  And  under  that  defini- 
tion there  could  be  no  science  of  law.  The  Encyclopedia 
Britannica  in  demurring  to  the  extent  to  which  Turgot 
carried  the  principles  of  the  science  of  money  laid  down 
by  Cantillon,  g^ves  a  good  example  of  latter-day  English 
ideas  of  human  rights.  It  has  the  same  idea  in  its  article 
"Nassau":  'This  prince  had  already  in  1814  granted  his^ 
subjects  a  limited  constitution,"  etc.  It  ought  to  read: 
"This  prince  gave  back  a  few  of  the  rights  that  his  fathers 
stole.'' 

The  reason  in  the  case  of  the  Americans  and  English 
alike  is  that  they  are  both  Royalists;  one  secretly,  the 
other  openly. 

(c)  The  editor  of  the  Century  Magazine,  Au- 
gust, 1894,  adds:  "Why,  then,  should  we  go  on  mak- 
ing silver,  or  any  other  form  of  money  a  legal  tender? 
Why  not  accept  the  proposal  made  by  Mr.  Wells  and 
other  economists  years  ago,  and  put  in  the  form  of  a  bill 
in  the  House  of  Representatives  by  Congressman  Harter 
of  Ohio  to  open  the  mints  to  the  free  coinage  of  both 
gold  and  silver,  with  no  legal  tender  quality  imposed  upon 
either?" 

See  how  this  principle  would  work  in  respect  to  all  other 
rights.  Suppose  we  repeal  all  laws  relating  to  weights  and 
measures,  have  no  legal  bushel,  foot  or  pound.  The 
Wells-Harter  proposition  is  a  piece  of  chicane.  If 
our  statutes  did  not  define  any  measures  or  weights  the 
statutes  of  other  nations  would  do  it  for  us,  for  we  would 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  117 

by  custom  adopt  them.  They  thought  they  would  "cute- 
ly" put  us  under  England's  money  laws,  perhaps.  And 
they  counted,  too,  doubtless,  on  the  money  power  in  New 
York  and  New  England  controlling  the  matter  by  legis- 
lation. And,  thirdly,  it  may  be  they  expected  to  get  Con- 
gress to  make  nothing  but  gold  receivable  for  dues  to  the 
government,  and  so  set  the  key. 

Go  further.  Why  have  any  laws  relating  to  any  of  the 
rights  of  individuals  any  more  than  a  law  defining  what 
may  be  tendered  and  what  must  be  taken  as  money?  We 
have  only  to  look  back  to  the  case  of  our  kin  in  Iceland  to 
see  why.  Legislation  is  a  part  of  the  machinery  for  en- 
forcing natural  rights.  Wliere  they  are  in  danger  from 
abroad  it  is  still  necessary  even  were  the  domestic  danger 
taken  away.  This  completely  answers  Messrs.  Wells, 
Harter  and  the  Century. 

What  is  a  "legal  tender'^  law?  It  is  only  a  declaration 
of  the  fact  that  inasmuch  as  nature  has  given  to  man,  and 
custom-law  knows,  no  money,  no  common  medium  of  ex- 
change but  these  two  metals;  therefore,  in  case  of  dis- 
pute be  it  known  that  such  is  the  fact,  and  it  must  be  so 
taken.  Any  other  legal  tender  act  is  of  a  kind  with  the 
juggling  with  the  words  of  the  father's  will  in  Swift's  "Tale 
of  a  Tub." 

Jefiferson  doubted  the  power  of  Congress  to  make  any- 
thing a  legal  tender.  But  it  alone  could  coin  "money" 
(which  every  framer  of  the  constitution  knew  to  mean  only 
gold  and  silver),  and  no  state  could  make  anything  a 
legal  tender  but  those  two  metals;*  so  that  it  would  be 
of  no  consequence  to  the  honest  whether  Congress  pass 
such  laws  or  not. 

♦When  a  State  court  forces  one  to  take  greenbacks  as  money 
on  a  contract  made  wholly  within  the  State,  does  it  not  as  an 
agency  of  the  State  do  what  is  specifically  forbidden  to  the 
State? 


118  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

Wells  and  Harter  doubtless  counted  that  the  laws  of 
the  creditor  States  would  make  gold  the  only  money  and 
silver  legal  tender  for  small  sums,  and  expected  thus  to 
get  through  the  courts  on  the  constitutional  question  (the 
provision  that  no  state  shall  make  anything  but  gold  and 
silver  a  legal  tender  in  payment  of  debts.)  They  counted 
on  controlling  the  money  contracts  with  the  back- 
ing of  the  foreign  enemies  of  this  republic,  their 
fellow-conspirators.  But  any  honest  court  must  de- 
cide that  the  constitution  cannot  be  dodged  by  chi- 
cane, or  "Yankee  cuteness,"  or  Anglo-Hebrew  fraud, 
but  must  be  construed  broadly  and  honestly;  and 
that  contracts  payable  in  coins  of  a  specific  material  are 
not  money  contracts  and  not  entitled  to  the  ancient  priv- 
ilege of  negotiability  of  the  law  merchant  recognize  by 
the  statute  of  Queen  Anne. 

If  we  hold  the  word  "law"  down  to  its  meaning  we  see 
that  there  can  be  nothing  in  law  when  written  that  is  not 
already  in  nature.  As  every  man  has  a  natural  right  to 
life,  it  is  right  that  a  family  or  clan  kill  any  one  who  kills 
a  member  of  such  family  or  clan.  This  is  what  Bacon 
says  revenge  is :  A  kind  of  wild  justice.  But  when  many 
clans  are  blended  into  a  nation  it  is  found  best  to  put 
this  duty  on  the  State,  so  that  its  justice  and  propriety 
may  be  understood  of  all,  and  one  murder  lead  not  to  a 
great  many  by  action  and  reaction.  The  test  of  law,  then, 
is  that  there  is  nothing  in  it  that  is  not  already  in  nature. 
When  legislative  enactment  fails  of  this  test  it  is  not  law; 
it  is  lawlessness.  Now  we  can  see  clearly  in  the  matter  of 
legal  tender  enactments.  We  can  see  that  they  who  think 
that  "law  makes  money,"  commit  the  tyrannical  action  of 
forcing  men  to  use  now  this  and  now  that  as  the  medium 
of  exchange  and  legal  tender  in  payment  of  money  con- 
tracts instead  of  the  commodities  that  alone  (by  reason  of 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  lid 

their  own  physical  nature  and  the  wants  of  man's  nature 
that  they  fill)  are  the  natural  medium  of  exchange,  and 
that,  not  only  by  immemorial  custom-law,  but  in  the  very 
nature  of  things,  alone  hold  that  place  and  alone  most 
nearly  perfectly  perform  that  office.  A  crucial  test  of  the 
truth  of  this  will  follow  a  few  pages  further  on. 

Wm.  P.  St.  John,  president  of  the  Mercantile  National 
Bank  of  New  York,  a  hero  among  cowards,  an  honest 
man  among  plunderers,  in  an  uncommonly  strong  paper 
read  before  the  committee  of  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives on  Banking  and  Currency,  December  15,  1894,  drove 
away  the  "yard-stick"  fogs  like  the  sun  does  a  fog  in  a 
canon  in  the  mountains.  But  he  at  once  blindfolded  him- 
self by  saying  ''money  is  the  creature  of  law.  Money  is 
all  domestic.  Our  ten  dollar  gold-piece  is  accounted  258 
grains  of  nine-tenths  fine  gold  when  beyond  the  jurisdic- 
tion of  the  United  States."  Gold  and  silver  are  money 
everywhere ;  but  scarcely  anywhere  in  the  world  are  man's 
natu*-al  rights  which  that  fact  carries  with  it,  recognized 
and  enforced  by  the  power  of  the  State.  Many  other  nat- 
ural rights  of  man  are  denied  their  exercise,  but  if  "law" 
in  the  Sense  of  the  State  were  'to  put  the  individual  in  pos- 
session of  them  and  protect  him  in  their  exercise  here- 
after, it  would  not  prove  that  those  "rights  are  the  creature 
of  law."  If  "money  is  the  creature  of  law"  is  true  in  the 
broadest  sense:  if  man  cannot  use  anything  as  money, 
as  the  medium  of  exchange,  or  as  the  object  of  the  nego- 
tiable contract,  as  that  which  every  debtor  may  be  made 
to  give  and  every  creditor  forced  to  take — except  by  per- 
mission of  the  State,  then  he  cannot  justly  exercise  any 
other  right  unless  the  same  power  permit  him  to  do  so. 
Which  only  means  that  rights  are  not  natural,  but  are 
the  gift  of  sovereigns  and  States. 

Historically,  we  know  man  did,  before  any  formal  legis- 


120  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

laticn  on  the  subject,  have  and  use  this  medium  of  ex- 
change and  did  invent  the  negotiable  contract  that  refers 
to  it  and  to  no  other  commodity;  was  he  therein  acting 
lawlessly?  If  so,  then  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a  body  of 
human  rights.  If  there  is  such  a  thing  as  a  body  of  human 
rights  then  Mr.  St.  John  is  mistaken  and  Turgot  is  right. 
"Coins  of  the  realm"  there  can  be;  money  *'of  the  realm" 
only,  there  can  not  be.  The  question  only  arose  because 
certain  ones  wanted  to  steal  safely  and  respectably.  Of 
the  American  representatives  of  the  latter  class  (exclud- 
ing their  associates  whg  do  wrong  only  from  ignorance 
of  the  principles  of  the  science  of  money)  some  say  that 
custom  does  make  money  and  that  custom  has  changed 
and  made  gold  alone  money,  and  we  must  follow.  Others 
of  them  say  that  legislation  makes  money.  But  the  only 
reason  they  say  anything  is  that  we  are  in  an  age  when 
theft  must  have  something  else  to  say  than  "what  are  you 
going  to  do  about  it."  By  showing  the  kinship  between 
the  Sanskrit  and  English  languages  England  saved  her- 
self an  army  of  a  hundred  thousand  men  in  India;  hood- 
winking the  Hindoos  from  seeing  that  the  people  and  the 
tongues  of  Russia  are  still  nearer  to  their  Aryan  fathers 
than  the  people  and  language  of  England.  So  the  Amer- 
icans have  been  fooled  by  words  into  submission  to  rob- 
bery that  no  army  on  earth  could  have  held  them  quiet 
under. 

In  1877,  coming  back  to  the  home  that  I  had  left  in 
boyhood  fifteen  years  before  to  live  on  the  plains  and  in 
the  mountains,  in  which  settlement  was  beginning  to  ex- 
tend, I  found  my  schoolmates  grown  to  manhood,  and 
the  democrats  among  them  stampeding  into  "greenback- 
ism."  That  year  I  wrote  and  the  next  year  published  a 
pamphlet  of  116  pages,  "The  Greenbackers  and  Their 
Doctrines,"  in  opposition  to  the  doctrine  adopted  by  Mis- 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  121 

souri  Democrats  in  State  convention  demanding  that  the 
Federal  Government  issue  greenbacks  "in  volume  equal 
to  the  wants  of  trade,"  as  the  phrase  then  went.  For  about 
five  years  I  wrote  steadily  articles  on  the  same  subject 
for  the  St.  Louis  Journal  of  Agriculture,  whose  then  own- 
er, though  a  Greenbacker,  gave  me  free  swing.  Ira  S. 
Hazeltine,  a  Greenbacker,  was  elected  to  Congress  from 
the  Springfield,  Mo.,  district.  A  few  days  ago  he  had  a 
column  in  the  same  paper,  and  it  began  with  the  same 
sentence  that  Mr.  St.  John  used:  "In  all  nations  law 
makes  money."  I  -had  then  never  seen  an  Encyclopedia 
Britannica,  nor  read  of  Turgot  or  his  doctrines.  In  my 
pamphlet  of  that  day,  page  7,  chap.  3,  et  seq.,  "Money 
Defined,"  I  said: 

There  was  probably  never  so  good  a  definition  of  money 
as  Adam  Smith's  century-old  one.  "Money  is  the  known  and 
established  instrument  of  Comnaerce,  for  which  everything  is 
readily  given  in  exchange;"  and  he  many  times  declares  that 
this  is  nothing  but  gold  and  silver.  Anything  which  does 
not  answer  to  this  definition  can  not  properly  be  called  money;- 
though  it  is  getting  to  be  the  custom  to  speak  of  various 
promises  to  pay  money,  as  money. 

Professor  Francis  A.  Walker,  in  his  valuable  work  called 
"Money,"  includes  in  the  term  the  precious  metals,  bank  notes, 
and  government  notes,  whether  convertible  or  not.  He  says, 
"we  say  that  money  is  any  commodity  which  attains  such  a 
measure  of  popular  acceptability  that  men  habitually  receive 
it  for  what  they  have  to  sell,  knowing  that  it  will,  in  due  time, 
that  is  at  any  time,  command  in  exchange  what  they  wish  to 
buy."  How  can  a  promise  be  called  a  "commodity?"  What 
is  meant  by  "men?"  All  men,  or  certain  men?  Money  is  not 
co-extensive  with  men.  It  is  not  confined  by  national  bounda- 
ries. To  say  something  is  money,  because  it  is  a  commercial 
instrument  in  a  certain  country,  is  like  saying  such  an  one 
is  president  of  the  United  States,  in  New  York  and  New 
Jersey,  but  not  in  the  rest  of  the  states.  Bank  notes  and 
government  notes  are  promises  to  give  value,  memoranda  of 
the  fact  that  it  has  been  received,  and  how,  where,  when  and 
in  what  quantity  it  will  be  returned  to  the  original  party  from 
whom  it  was  received,  or  to  any  one  who  may  afterwards 
obtain  possession  of  it.  Why  is  a  written  promise  money 
any  more  than  an  oral  one?  Why  is  the  bank's  note  money 
and  its  draft  or  check  not  money?    And  if  a  promise  carried 


122  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

on  paper  is  money,  why  are  not  the  clicks  of  a  telegraphic 
instrument,  or  the  motions  of  the  fingers  of  a  deaf  mute,  money 
as  well?  These  may  be  orders  or  promises  relating  to  money, 
but  they  can  not  be  money. 


An  American  banker,  Mr.  Geo.  Opdyke,  says  "money  is  an 
instrument  of  Commerce  designed  to  facilitate  the  exchange 
of  all  commodities,  by  presenting  an  equivalent  in  a  portable 
and  convenient  shape."  But  who  "designed"  it?  This  is  as 
if  it  had  been  designed  for  the  purpose  before  it  was  used 
^  for  it. 

Adam  Smith's  definition  is  as  if  it  grew  to  be  the  instru- 
ment *  of  Commerce,  and  was,  when  so  recognized,  established 
as  that  instrument:  and  is  in  accordance  with  the  facts. 


Gold  and  silver  are  money  by  the  action  of  the  law  of  the 
survival  of  the  fittest.  They  have  outlived  shells  and  codfish, 
and  cloth,  and  the  other  things,  for  the  purposes  of  money — 
driven  them  off  their  own  ground. 

A  loose  thinker  seeing  that  Commerce  has  adopted  gold 
and  silver  as  its  money,  imagines  that  legislatures  can  make 
other  things  money.  It  would  be  about  as  logical  to  suppose 
because  nature  dictates  black  eyes  for  the  African  negroes, 
that  a  legislature  could  make  all  the  eyes  of  American  white 
people  blue  by  law.    It  is  the  work  of  Nature  in  either  case. 


Nothing  is  money  but  gold  and  silver.  Other  substances 
have  been  used  as  substitutes  for  money  in  certain  localities, 
and  credit  is  sometimes  more  valuable  than  money,  and  it 
ought  to  be,  for  it  is  character. 

Trenholm  says: 

"In  countries  where  the  laws  do  not  prescribe  any  par- 
ticular form  of  money,  the  money  in  use  depends  for  its 
force  upon  conventional  recognition,  and  this  is  always 
found  sufficient. 

"To  facilitate  interchange  of  values  and  to  measure  such 
values  may  be  regarded  as  the  natural  functions  of  money, 
but  in  most  civilized  countries  it  has  another  function, 

♦Instrumentality  would  better  tell  what  money  is  than 
"instrument." 


I'lIE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  123 

which  is  artificial  and  established  by  law,  viz.,  that  of  a 
legal  tender  in  payment  of  taxes  and  in  discharge  of  debt 
Debt  is  a  product  of  civilization ;  it  can  arise  only  where 
credit  exists.  Taxation  is  also  peculiar  to  civilization ;  it 
is  the  civilized  and  orderly  form  of  levying  contributions 
for  the  support  of  the  state. 

"Since,  therefore,  taxes  and  debt  exist  only  under  condi- 
tions which  presuppose  an  organized  society  and  the 
prevalence  of  law,  we  find  money  invested  with  the  func- 
tions of  a  legal  tender  only  by  positive  enactment.  As 
the  law  defines  debt  and  enforces  its  payment,  the  law 
must  say  what  is  sufficient  payment;  as  the  law  levies 
taxes  and  requires  them  to  be  paid  in  money,  the  law  must 
instruct  the  citizen  as  to  what  the  medium  of  payment  is 
to  be. 

"It  is  evident  that  popular  confidence  and  consent  are 
not  in  any  degree  necessary  to  the  support  of  a  legal  tender 
currency.  Within  its  sphere  of  discharging  debts  and 
satisfying  the  demands  of  the  government,  a  legal-tender 
currency  exists  by  force  of  law  alone. 

"Putting  together  the  results  of  our  inquiries  up  to  this 
point,  we  get  this  definition : 

"Money  is  a  conventionally  recognized  and  generally  ac- 
cepted medium  of  exchange  and  measure  of  value;  it  is 
also,  by  force  of  law,  a  medium  for  ,the  settlement  of  con- 
tracts and  debts,  'and  for  the  discharge  of  public  dues. 

"We  all  know  that  the  gold  in  an  eagle  is  worth  more 
than  the  silver  in  ten  standard  dollars,  and  much  more 
than  that  in  twenty  half-dollars,  forty  quarters,  etc.,  while 
bank  notes  and  greenbacks  have  but  little  intrinsic  value ; 
yet  it  is  a  matter  of  daily  experience  that  ten  dollars  in  one 
of  these  forms  is  precisely  equivalent,  for  the  ordinary  pur- 
poses of  money,  to  the  same  sum  in  any  other  form ;  that 
is,  all  our  dollars  are  of  equal  money  force. 


124  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

"It  is  evident,  therefore,  that  the  character  of  money  is 
not  conferred  upon  a  coin  by  intrinsic  value  only,  nor 
upon  a  note  or  bill  by  fully  secured  representative  value, 
but  coins  and  notes  and  bills  become  money  only  when 
invested  with  that  character  by  some  power  competent  to 
give  them  general  currency  in  the  community." 

He  is  one  of  the  teachers  sent  out  by  this  administra- 
tion to  teach  its  masters,  one  of  the  most  active  agents  of 
the  conspiracy.  He  is  one  of  those  who  assail  the  Popu- 
lists (and  those  who  demand  constitutional  coinage  also) 
as  "fiatists";  yet  in  his  system  there  can  be  no  such  thing 
as  money  without  fiat.  If  a  man  make  a  contract  to 
build  a  brick  house  for  another  and  try  to  fulfill  it  by 
building  one  of  adobe  or  sundried  bricks,  he  would  find 
that  "law  defines  brick  houses  and  enforces  contracts  for 
their  building,"  quite  as  much  as  it  defines  debt  and  the 
money  in  which  it  is  payable.  But  law  does  not  make 
either  debt,  brick  or  money.  All  three  exist  before  and 
without  legislation. 

The  people  gave  Congress  the  power  to  borrow 
"money"  and  to  coin  "money"  and  to  raise  "armies."  It 
is  significant  that  in  the  list  of  the  powers  that  of  levying 
taxes  and  borrowing  money  come  earlier  than  the  power 
to  coin  money.  This  goes  to  prove  that  the  members  of 
the  convention  knew  that  money  was  a  thing  already 
in  existence  and  was  not  a  creation  of  fiat,  only  to  come 
into  existence  later  on  by  its  action.  They  went  on  and 
levied  taxes  in  money  and  borrowed  money  before  coining 
any.  Were  we  to  allow  the  same  latitude  in  respect  to 
the  word  "armies"  that  Trenholm  and  the  other  fiatists 
give  themselves  in  respect  to  the  word  "money"  it  would 
be  entirely  proper  to  make  an  appropriation  for  the  sup- 
port of  the  Salvation  Army. 

In  the  last  bimetallic  convention  in  St.  Louis  a  resolu- 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILX)SOPHY.  125 

tion  passed  in  which  occurred  the  statement  that  law  alone 
makes  money.  If  this  were  true  Mr.  St.  John  and  the 
Greenbackers  (now  Populists)  are  in  the  position  of  a  man 
who  has  fought  by  agreement  and  according  to  rules  and 
got  knocked  out.  The  demonetizers  can  answer  them, 
"Yes,  law  makes  money,  it  has  made  gold  alone  money. 
We  have  a  right  according  to  you  to  hold  it  at  that  if  we 
can."  But  if  Turgot  is  right,  the  people  are  Hke  a  certain 
man  who  went  down  to  Jericho,  and  the  demonetizers  are 
the  persons  among  whom  he  fell.  If  legislation  makes 
money  then  business  is  a  football  and  money  is  the  foot  of 
the  strongest  kickers,  and  they  have  a  just  right  to  kick  the 
business  of  the  country  this  way  and  that  way  at  will  so 
that  they  will  be  the  winners  at  the  end  of  the  game.  But 
if  my  crude  pamphlet  of  1878  was  right  they  are  violators 
of  the  eighth  commandment. 

The  Encyclopedia  Britannica,  in  the  article  "Numis- 
matics," says  "a  coin  is  a  piece  of  metal  of  a  fixed  weight, 
stamped  by  authority  of  government,  and  employed  as 
a  circulating  medium."  If  the  mint  were  captured  in  time 
of  war  and  a  party  of  soldiers  were  to  strike  some  pieces  of 
money,  using  the  mint  machinery  and  the  stock  of  metal 
found  in  it,  such  pieces,  although  exactly  like  the  ones 
made  and  "stamped  by  authority  of  government"  the  day 
before,  would  not  be  coins  under  the  British  definition. 
For  fiat  did  not  make  them. 

And  when  coining  was  still  the  private  enterprise  of  its 
inventors  and  before  kings  and  states  had  monopolized 
it  the  coins  were  not  coins  under  neo-English  fiatism's 
definition. 

It  is  not  strange  that  British  Tories  combat  the  true 
principles  of  the  science  of  money;  for  the  foundation  of 
this  science  is  the  same  as  that  of  the  principles  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence;  and  thus  a  royalist  cannot 


126  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

admit  the  truths  of  the  science  of  money  without  stultify- 
ing himself  and  denying  his  sovereign's  authority. 

The  coining  of  money  by  the  state  probably  marks  the 
beginning  of  the  rule  of  the  fiat-money  idea.  This  idea 
has  just  completed  its  subjugation  of  the  world,  and  it  will 
be  the  work  of  the'science  of  money  to  free  mankind  from 
its  tyranny. 

The  world  has  seen  fiat  in  religion,  in  exchange  and  in 
finance.  Schools  of  freedom  in  all  three  have  come  into 
existence.  Wells,  Morton,  Sumner  claim  to  be  for  free- 
dom in  two,  but  are  not  for  it  in  the  other  one. 

If  "law  makes  money,"  if  fiat  creates  it,  we  will  have  as 
many  plans  as  citizens.     Here  is  one  : 

''Editor  of  the  Journal  of  Agriculture: 

''The  question  is.  What  do  we  need  to  stop  idleness 
and  suffering  among  our  people?  Money !  What  kind  of 
money?  Gold  money  to  pay  interest  on  bonds  and  settle 
foreign  balances;  silver  money  for  every  day  use;  paper 
money,  a  full  legal  tender  redeemable  in  coin;  an  amount 
in  all  not  less  than  $50  per  capita.  Lef  s  quit  talking  about 
free  coinage  and  come  to  something  that  the  people  can  all 
understand.  Say  that  the  government  buys  the  entire 
silver  product  at  the  market  price  of  silver  and  pays  for  it 
in  silver  coin  and  purchases  all  as  fast  as  offered.  Then 
issue  greenbacks  as  a  full  legal  tender  redeemable  in  coin 
and  times  will  soon  change  for  the  better. 


"BILL  JONES.*^ 
"Courtney,  Mo. 

He  has  as  good  a  right  to  his  plan  as  any  one  else  to 
his,  if  legislation  can  justly  make  and  unmake  money.    All 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  127 

he  needs  is  to  get  enough  votes  in  Congress;  any  way 
they  can  be  had. 

If  our  economic  Anglomaniacs  forsake  the  natural  plan 
and  demand  that  fiatism  rule  they  must  acknowledge  that 
paper  fiatism,  or  what  they  falsely  call  silver  fiatism,  has 
the  same  right  to  their  plan  if  they  can  command  the  votes 
needed.  They  try  to  escape  from  this  corner  by  affirming 
what  might  be  called  the  infallibility  of  Anglomania. 

In  the  true  sense  of  the  word  ''law"  money  is  made 
by  law.  The  gradual  use  of  gold  and  silver,  the  evolution 
of  the  common  medium  of  exchange,  could  only  come 
through  the  free  exercise  of  the  natural  right  of  man  to 
use  them  for  any  purpose  that  he  may  desire.  But  that 
one  majority  which  gets  control  of  the  legislative  machin- 
ery may  justly  make  that  thing  money  which  it  fancies  is 
"sound"   or   ''honest,"  and   demonetize   what   it  found 

,  or  that  another  may  justly  do  away  with  both 

metals,  because  "government  legal  tender  paper  is  the  best 

for  all  purposes,"*  if  it  can  get  control is  contrary 

to  natural  right  or  law  in  the  true  sense  of  the  word. 

(d)  The  claim  is  often  made  that  our  obligations  are  pay- 
able in  gold,  and  because  the  coinage  law  of  1792  was  re- 
placed by  the  law  that  dropped  the  silver  dollar  we  were  on 
the  "gold  basis,"  and  the  coinage  of  silver  has  never  been 
put  back  as  it  was  before.  This  is  completely  answered  by 
the  principle  of  law  that  no  one  is  allowed  to  profit  by  his 
own  wrong.  And  it  is  wrong  because  the  right  is  in- 
alienable. 

In  the  North  American  Review,  Feb.  1895,  in  his  con- 
tribution to  muddling  the  "Financial  Muddle,"  Mr.  Cannon 
says  "the  paper  which  has  been  issued  by  the  government 
is  on  a  gold  basis,  and  when  supplanted  by  bank  notes 

*Ex.  M.  C.  Ira  S.  Haseltine, 


128  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

they  also  must  be  maintained  on  a  gold  basis,"  etc. 
But  no  one  can  gain  rights  by  the  commission  of  wrongs. 
The  claim  that  any  obligation  is  incurred  by  the  United 
States  towards  the  wrong-doers  on  account  of  the  passage 
of  acts  contrary  to  the  principles  of  the  Declaration  of 
Independence  is  absurd. 

If  Taney  based  his  claim  of  the  right  to  hold  slaves  in 
the  territories  on  the  fact  that  white  men  everywhere  had 
treated  negroes  as  persons  having  no  rights  that  they  were 
bound  to  respect,  it  would  mean  exactly  what  the  gold-fiat 
slavery  party  means  in  opposing  the  restitution  to  holders 
of  silver  their  natural  rights  on  the  ground  that  by  wrong- 
doing demonetizers  have  acquired  rights.  We  ought  to 
learn  wisdom  from  that  form  of  slavery  and  use  it  in  this. 
Cannon  says  "whatever  the  opinion  of  the  citizens  of 
the  United  States  in  the  matter,  gold  is  to-day  the  sole 
money  of  full  debt-paying  power  among  the  principal 
civilized  nations."  That  no  more  makes  an  example  for 
us  to  follow  than  does  the  fact  that  Europe  has  kings  make 
another  for  us  to  follow.  Besides,  it  is  not  left  to  Cannon 
and  Cleveland  and  Wells  to  decide  for  all  of  us  what 
nations  are  the  most  civilized.  That  foul  England  of 
to-day,  where  royalty  and  "nobility"  buy  Poverty's  chil- 
dren of  both  sexes  for  vile  and  unmentionable  purposes  is 
their  "standard"  of  "civiHzation." 

These  two  metals  were  money,  and  performed  the  office 
that  legal  tender  money  now  performs  for  thousands  of 
years  before  there  was  ever  a  law  on  the  subject.  Money, 
then,,  is  not  originally  the  creature  of  legislation ;  legisla- 
tion only  sanctioned  and  ratified  what  it  found.  It  might  be 
said  that  legislation  made  the  de  facto  ruler  of  the  world  its 
ruler  de  jure.  All  the  gold  and  all  the  silver  in  the  world 
was  money  then.  If  then  any  one  agreed  to  pay  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  it  and  the  person  to  whom  he  agreed  to 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  129 

pay  it  had  procured  the  destruction  of  one  half  of  it, 
making  it  doubly  hard  to  get,  it  would  be  unjust  for  him  to 
have  to  pay  the  amount  agreed. 

In  July,  1880,  the  Hon.  Henry  Clay  Dean  (once  Chap- 
lain to  Congress),  made  an  address  to  the  Missouri  Bank- 
ers' Association  at  Sweet  Springs,  in  which  he  gave  as  the 
* 'aggregate  loss  to  the  government  by  the  depreciation  of 
the  currency  from  January,  1862  to  April,  1866,  $1,297,- 
000,000.  This  does  not  include  the  losses  of  private  indi- 
viduals." That  is  a  part  of  what  we  paid  for  lawlessness, 
for  acting  on  the  idea  that  "law"  (legislation)  makes 
money. 

The  first  legal  tender  act  ever  passed  no  doubt  aimed  at 
tl  eft,  just  as  the  legal  tender  act,  known  as  the  coinage  law 
of  1873,  i^  which  the  silver  dollar,  the  unit  of  money,  was 
dropped  from  the  coinage,  originated  with  foreign  thieves, 
and  was  passed  by  their  American  associates  and  their 
dupes. 


130  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE  RATIO  BETWEEN  GOLD  AND  SILVER. 

We  have  now  reached  the  most  interesting  point  in  the 
battle  for  human  rights  in  respect  to  the  medium  of  ex- 
change. The  City  of  Gold-Basis-Fiatism,  on  which, 
armed  with  Natural  Rights,  we  have  been  closing  in,  is  all 
taken,  except  the  citadel,  to  which  the  oppressors  fall  back 
and  in  which  they  shut  themselves  up,  confident  that  it 
cannot  be  taken.     Or,  using  another  figure: 

A  certain  very  hard  problem  in  geometry  is  known  in 
the  schools  as  the  Pons  Asinorum,  or  Bridge  of  the  Asses, 
because  the  dull  halt  at  it  long  and  are  got  over  it  with 
difficulty  just  as  is  the  case  with  a  donkey  at  a  bridge. 
The  ratio  may  well  be  called  the  Pons  Asinorum  of  the 
science  of  money.  Here  we  find  the  leaders  of  gold-basis 
fiatism  bunched  up  and  declaring  that  the  bridge  cannot 
be  crosced. 

(a)  The  endeavor  shall  be  in  this  chapter  to  settle  for 
:all  time  the  question  of  coinage  ratios;  open  for  all  time 
to  come  the  Pons  Asinorum  of  the  science  of  money. 
Some  of  the  ','m€n'\  (homines,  those  who  do  homage)  of 
the  lords  of  this  financial  feudal  system  say  that  however 
desirable  it  may :  be  it  is  impossible  to  use  gold  and  silver 
rtogether,  as  no  fixed  ratio  is  possible.  A  conveniently 
xompact  statement  of  this  error  is  found  in  "The  World's 
Exchanges,"  etc.,  by  Norman. 

He  says:  "Have  you  made  up  your  mind  upon  the 
.truth  or  falsehood  of  these  two  propositions? 

(a)  Gold  and  silver  are  different  substanQe§. 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  131 

(b)  No  two  different  substances  can  be  exchanged  for 
any  length  of  time  on  parallel  lines  of  quantities  or  values, 
neither  can  they  be  produced  for  any  length  of  time  upon 
parallel  lines  of  cost." 

In  the  English  magazine,  "Nineteenth  Century,"  for 
November,  1894,  Henry  Dunning  MacLeod,  the  fore- 
most champion  of  gold-basis  fiatism,  formulates  "The 
Monometallist  Creed,"  and  states  the  same  thing,  but  in  a 
sprawling  style,  not  compactly.* 

MacLeod  says:  "If  it  were  possible  to  establish  a  fixed 
ratio  between  gold  and  silver  by  international  agreement 
it  would  be  equally  possible  to  fix  the  value  of  all  com- 
modities. *  *  *  If  it  were  printed  in  all  the  statute 
books  of  the  world  that  the  price  of  wheat  should  be  60s. 
a  quarter,  does  any  person  of  common  sense  suppose  that 
the  price  of  wheat  would  rise  one  farthing?" 

MacLeod's  ideas  of  parallelism  in  treatment  of  two  com- 
modities is  satisfied  when  he  compares  one  (gold)  bought 
by  the  government  at  a  fixed  price  whenever  and  in  what- 
ever quantity  offered ;  and  another  (silver)  bought  in  lim- 
ited quantity  at  the  market  price;  and  others  not  bought 
or  sold  at  any  price  by  the  government,  but  declared  by 
government  to  be  worth  a  fixed  price  when  sold  by  man  to 
man. 

Norman  quotes  Prof.  Sumner  of  Yale:  "Is  the  notion 
that  two  metals  can  be  joined  in  the  coinage  at  a  fixed 
ratio  by  any  human  device  or  artifice  whatever,  true  in 
science?  I  answer,  No;  it  is  just  as  false  as  the  proposi- 
tion, a  perpetual  motion  is  possible,  would  be  in  me- 
chanics." The  learned  professor  seems  not  to  see  that  his 
proposition  and  Mr.  Norman's  amounts  to  a  claim  that 
perpetual  rest  is  possible — that  gold  is  an  unvarying  stan- 

*Mr.  Chandler  of  the  N.  Y.  Indej)endent  iealled  my  attention 
±0  this  as  "unanswerable." 


132  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

dard — and  is  equally  false  with  that  of  perpetual  motion. 
There  is  perpetual  motion  in  the  universe,  but  there  is 
not  perpetual  rest  anywhere  in  nature,  not  even  in  the 
value  of  gold. 

When  Prof.  Sumner  said  "two  metals,"  he  took  for 
granted  that  any  two  metals  and  every  two  metals  are  to 
each  other  as  gold  to  silver,  and  are  to  mankind  as  gold 
and  silver  in  the  matter  of  cost,  supply  and  demand  and 
purchasing  power.  But  that  is  not  true,  never  was  and 
never  will  be.  They  are  unique  in  those  respects.  He 
studied  the  same  text  books  of  logic  that  MacLeod  did,  it 
would  seem.  Did  he  see  the  fallacy  and  use  it,  or  did  he 
use  it  because  he  did  not  see  it? 

The  Secretary  of  Agriculture  very  lately  taught  the 
same  in  public  as  follows:  *T  do  not  believe  that  an  in- 
ternational congress  can  establish  permanently  a  commer- 
cial ratio  between  gold  and  silver  any  more  than  it  can 
establish  a  permanent  commercial  ratio  between  rye  and 
wheat.  But  if  an  international  conference  can  fix  the 
price  in  gold,  of  silver,  it  can  fix  the  price  of  wheat "br  of 
any  other  commodity,  and  thereby  avoid  the  possible 
shrinkages  in  values  which  tend  to  cause  panics.  *  *  * 
The  relation  of  supply  to  demand  is  the  sole  regulator 
of  value.  This  axiom  applies  to  salt,  silver,  sugar  and 
soap.  All  the  legislation  of  all  the  law-making  bodies 
on  the  face  of  the  globe  can  neither  mitigate  nor  annul  the 
operation  of  the  inexorable  law  'that  the  relation  of  sup- 
ply to  demand  is  the  sole  regulator  of  value.' " 

This  assumes  that  the  two  money  metals  are  situated 
exactly  on  an  equality  with  the  other  commodities  that 
he  names  in  all  respects.  Does  gold,  an  element  that  has 
been  one  of  the  anchors  of  superstition  always,  that  is 
one  of  a  very  few  things  in  the  department  of  esthetics 
whose  quantity  is  rigidly  limited  by  nature,  have  any 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  133 

parallelism  with  wheat?  Or  with  soap,  and  sugar,  and 
salt?  What  parallelism  is  there  between  the  natural  rela- 
tions of  gold  and  silver  and  the  relations  between  coal 
and  cotton?  Are  they  to  each  other  just  as  gold  and  sil- 
ver? Can  there  be  any  paralleHsm  between  elements  that 
are  never  eaten  and  whose  supply  is  fixed  by  nature,  and 
combinations  of  elements  that  man  may  increase  almost 
at  will  in  quantity  and  that  he  uses  for  food?  Does  he 
mean  that  rye,  wheat,  salt,  silver,  sugar  and  soap  are 
to-day  all  on  the  same  footing  before  the  law  as  regards 
demand  and  supply?  If  one  of  the  natural  uses  of  foreign 
salt — used  by  Americans — be  taken  away  by  a  tariff  too 
high  to  allow  it  to  enter  this  country,  and  the  natural  uses 
of  American  salt  are  not  interfered  with,  does  that  leave 
the  prices  of  the  two  to  the  sole  regulator  of  prices,  de- 
mand and  supply?  If  one  of  silver's  uses  be  cut  off  by 
law  and  all  of  gold's  left,  do  they  stand  to  each  other  as 
wheat  and  rye,  whose  natural  uses  are  all  left  to  both  of 
them  ? 

Mr.  Morton  says  aloud:  ''Demand  and  supply  alone 
regulate  the  value  of  silver,"  and  aside  with  a  wink  to  the 
Issue-Bank  Ring,  ''but  we  regulate  demand."  If  Mr. 
Morton's  last  sentence  is  true  he  has  a  very  long  record 
of  anti-protection  teaching  to  revise,  correct  and  take  back. 

Here  is  a  sample  from  MacLeod  (in  re  Charlemagne 
and  the  pound  weight  of  silver  divided  into  240  pennies) : 
"For  a  considerable  period  the  kings  of  France  coined 
these  pennies  at  their  full  weight  and  fineness.  But  about 
the  beginning  of  the  twelfth  century  they  began  not  only 
to  diminish  their  weight,  but  to  debase  their  purity.  They 
considered  it  a  part  of  their  inalienable  divine  right  to 
declare  that  their  subjects  should  accept  the  diminished 
and  debased  coin  at  the  same  value  as  the  good  coins  of 
full  weight.      They  further  complicated  matters   by   issu- 


134  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

ing  gold  coins,  and  they  considered  it  as  part  of  their 
divine  right  to  change  the  RATING  of  these  coins  with 
respect  to  each  other  as  often  as  they  pleased."  (My 
itaHcs  and  capitals.)  "Rating""  is  the  ratio  (between  the 
gold  coins  and  the  silver  coins). 

Then  follows  a  statement  of  the  advice  of  Oresme  and 
Copernicus  that  they  must  not  thus  tamper  with  the  ratio, 
etc.,  and  then  Mr.  MacLeod  concludes  that  they  were 
not  tamperingwith  the  ratio,  for  he,says:  *' Moreover,  every 
government  in  Europe  after  having  vainly  attempted  to 
maintain  bimetallis7n  for  five  centuries  has  abandoned  it 
as  impracticable  and  injurious,  and  adopted  monometal- 
lism." (My  italics.)  That  is,  the  European  sovereigns 
tried  "how  not  to  do  it"  for  five  centuries  (as  the  evidence 
of  Oresme,  Koppernik  and  MacLeod  show),  which 
proves,  according  to  MacLeod,  that  it  cannot  be  done — 
that  there  is  no  natural  ratio  and  none  can  be  made.  Is 
Mr.  MacLeod  dishonest  or  stupid,  or  both,  or  is  his  article 
a  gauge  of  his  estimation  of  British  intellect? 

He  says:  "Thus  while  the  bimetallists  of  the  present 
day  allege  that  a  fixed  legal  ratio  between  the  coins  can 
control  and  fix  the  relative  value  of  the  metals,  the  experi- 
ence offive  centuries  and  a  chain  of  authorities  comprising 
some  of  the  most  illustrious  names  the  world  ever  pro- 
duced, with  the  consequences  of  bimetallism  before  them, 
clearly  and  unanimously  decided  that  such  an  idea  is  a 
delusion,  and  that  it  is  the  market  value  of  the  metals  that 
regulates  the  relative  value  of  the  coins."  They  tried  "not 
to  do  it"  for  five  hundred  years  and  succeeded.  Which 
proves  that  it  cannot  be  done.  "Market  value"  means 
the  price  of  anything  which  everyone  uses  according  to 
his  natural  right.  "Market  value"  in  the  fourteenth  cen- 
tury did  not  mean  the  price  made  by  "bulling"  and  "bear- 
ing."   Did  the  great  mind  of  Copernicus  come  back  from 


I'ME  FINANCIAL  PIIILOSOPM^i  135 

its  looking  into  the  fathomless  depths  of  the  skies  and 
noting  the  astounding  harmonies  of  the  movements  of 
an  infinity  of  worlds  and  stoop  to  tricks  like  a  modern 
worshipper  of  Cleveland  Street  royalty  and  "nobility"? 
The  very  thought  is  akin  to  blasphemy.  Wolowski,  mem- 
ber of  the  Institute  of  France,  published  an  edition  of  the 
"Traictie  de  la  Premiere  Invention  des  Monnoies,  de 
Nicholas  Oresme  et  Traite  de  la  Monnoie,  de  Copernic," 
in  1864,  and  it  only  takes  the  ability  to  read  the  very  old 
style  of  French  in  which  it  is  published  to  see  that  there 
is  nothing  in  the  two  treatises  that  gives  any  comfort  to 
gold  monometallists. 

The  identical  indictments  by  Oresme  and  Copernicus 
against  the  kings  and  princes  of  their  day  for  "tamper- 
ing with  the  coinage/'  as  MacLeod  notes  them,  are  just 
the  ones  of  which  the  natural  school  now  complain.  When 
the  Rothschilds,  having  true  news  from  Waterloo,  spread 
false  reports  and  put  down  the  price  of  English  bonds 
and  got  large  blocks  of  them,  they  then  induced  England 
to  "tamper"  w4th  silver;  demonetize  it.  They  had  none 
of  our  bonds  until  the  war  of  secession,  but  getting  them 
then,  they  turned  their  attention  to  this  country,  and  in 
the  opinion  of  those  who  have  the  best  chance  of  any  out- 
ciders  to  learn  the  truth  of  it,  the  Bank  of  England  using 
the  Rothschild  plan  procured  the  demonetization  of  silver 
here.  But  our  issue-bankers  saw  that  it  would  do  just 
what  their  guild  had  tried  to  accomplish  for  a  century: 
leave  one  metal  to  drive  out  with  their  paper  instead  of 
two ;  that  i^  being  the  one  most  desired  by  Europe  would 
go  abroad  and  leave  issue-banks  the  whole  field  for  their 
paper  currency. 

France  wanted  to  use  the  true  and  natural  ratio  and 
her  wise  men  found  it.  The  issue-bankers  of  the  United 
States,  the  advisers  of  our  secretaries  of  the  treasury  from 


136  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

the  beginning,  wanted  our  government  not  to  use  it;  for 
they  have  always  wanted  to  get  one  or  the  other  money 
metal  out  of  the  way  and  fill  the  channels  of  circulation 
with  their  own  notes,  nominally  redeemable  in  the  other 
metal  (of  which  there  is  to  be  ''enough  to  swear  by,"  a 
''basis" — of  an  inverted  pyramid),  but  never  actually  re- 
deemable when  redemption  is  most  urgently  demanded. 
So  when  first  asked  what  the  true  ratio  is  it  is  very  safe  to 
suppose  that  they  winked  at  each  other  and  then  solemnly 
told  the  secretary,  Hamilton,  "15  to  I."  They  thus  kept 
labor-money  from  getting  into  the  saddle.  It  became 
plain  that  such  was  not  the  true  ratio,  as  it  over-valued 
silver.  Another  secretary  asked  the  issue-bankers  again. 
No  doubt  they  asked  each  other,  "What  shall  we  do  to 
keep  labor-money  out  of  the  saddle?"  The  answer  was: 
"Let  him  mount  and  then  shove  him  over  on  the  other 
side."  So  no  doubt  they  winked  at  each  other  again  and 
solemnly  told  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasuiy  that  true  ratio 
is  16  to  I.  And  labor-money  fell  to  the  ground  on  the  off 
side  of  the  horse  and  theft-money*  got  into  his  place 
in  the  saddle,  and  is  now  making  a  desperate  fight  to  hold 
it  forever.  But  there  is  no  forever  for  tyranny;  freedom 
alone  has  it. 

The  Kansas  City  Star,  one  of  the  organs  of  gold-basis 
fiatism  gives  a  convenient  statement  of  the  case  thus: 

"In  1853  the  mint  laws  were  changed  so  as  to  reduce 
the  amount  of  silver  in  all  silver  coins  except  the  dollar. 
Prior  to  that  date  the  mints  were  open  for  the  free  and 
unlimited  coinage  of  silver,  but  it  was  impossible  to  keep 
silver  in  circulation  for  the  reason  that  the  metal  in  the 
silver  coins  was  more  valuable  than  the  metal  in  the  gold 

♦Webster  called  bank  bills  the  best  means  ever  invented  by 
which  the  rich  man  lives  by  the  sweat  of  the  poor  man's  face: 
a  long  way  of  describing  robbery. 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  iZl 

coins.  For  the  purpose  of  keeping  silver  in  circulation 
the  law  of  1853  was  adopted,  providing  that  the  half  dollar 
piece  should  contain  192  grains  of  silver  instead  of  208 
grains  as  it  had  previously  contained.  The  quarter,  dime 
and  half  dime  were  to  contain  proportionate  quantities. 
The  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  was  empowered  to  buy 
silver  bullion,  and  have  it  coined  into  these  pieces,  and 
the  section  of  the  law  of  1792  providing  for  free  coinage  of 
these  smaller  pieces  was  repealed. 

'This  law  was  passed  solely  for  the  purpose  of  provid- 
ing for  fractional  coins  which  could  be  retained  in  circu- 
lation." 

More  nearly  absolute  proof  that  our  financial  history 
is  the  history  of  a  conspiracy  could  hardly  be  asked  than 
that  the  law  of  1853  made  the  half  dollar  192  grains  in- 
stead of  206  1-4,  as  that  of  1837  made  it  (and  the  quarters, 
dimes  and  half  dimes  in  proportion).  The  reason  given 
for  the  reduction  was  that  we  could  not  keep  silver  for 
change;  it  was  under-valued  at  16  to  i  (or  15.98  to  i), 
and  went  to  France,  that  bid  15J  to  i.  Why  was  not  this 
equally  applied  to  the  dollar?  Because  State  banks  of 
issue  were  running  the  government  then  (just  as  federal 
banks  of  issue  are  now),  and  gold  was  plenty  from  Cali- 
fornia's four  years'  yield,  and  the  issue  banks  wanted 
our  laws  to  encourage  silver  to  leave  us.  And  now  after 
England's  act  in  doing  exactly  what  Koppernik  and 
Oresme  condemned,  has  been  followed  by  the  rest  of 
Europe  and  by  the  American  Tories,  we  are  cited  to  the 
doctrine  of  those  great  teachers  in  proof  that  what  they 
forbid  ought  to  be  done.  We  ought  to  have  let  all  our 
silver  coins  alone,  and  changed  the  gold  coins,  the  silver 
dollar  being  the  original  "unit  of  money." 

MacLeod  quotes  from  Nicolas  Oresme:  "One  of  the 
wisest  and  most  trusted  councillors  of  Charles  V.^  of 


13S  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY^. 

France^'  (1337-1380),  and  his  "great  treatise,  which  may 
be  said  to  stand  at  the  head  of  modern  economical  Htera- 
ture,"  as  containing  "the  fundamental  principles  of  money 
which  are  now  accepted  by  all  sound  economists."  The 
kernel  is  in  the  following  points:  "3.  That  the  legal  ratio 
of  the  coins  must  strictly  conform  to  the  relative  market 
value  of  the  metals."  And,  "4.  If  the  fixed  legal  ratio 
of  the  coins  differs  from  the  natural  or  market  value  of 
the  metals,  the  coin  which  is  underrated  entirely  disap- 
pears from  circulation,  and  the  coin  which  is  overrated 
alone  remains  current."*  Is  that  the  language  of  a  man 
who  believed  in  MacLeod's  "Monometallist  Creed,"  that 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  a  fixed  ratio  possible?  On  the 
contrary,  was  he  not  plainly  saying  that  there  is  a  "natural 
value"  and  if  the  "sovereign  power"  will  let  the  two  metals 
do  so  they  will  fix  their  own  ratio?  Nothing  but  rank 
dishonesty,  hopeless  stupidity  or  blindness  of  partisan- 
ship could  cause  MacLeod  to  say  as  he  does  that  "it  was 
out  of  those  principles  that  the  system  of  monometallism 
was  developed  at  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century." 
He  says:  "Oresme  and  Corpernicus  quite  agreed  that  it 
is  impossible  to  keep  gold  and  silver  coins  in  circulation 
together  in  unlimited  quantities  at  a  fixed  legal  ratio  dif- 
fering from  the  market  value  of  the  metals."  Now  what 
did  they  mean  by  "market  value?"  The  Encyclopedia 
Britannica  ("Money")  says  that  "it  is  impossible,  how- 
ever, to  agree  with  Tooke  that  uncoined  bullion  would 
be  higher  in  value  than  coin  when  a  seniorage  is  charged 
on  the  latter.  He  seems  to  ignore  the  fact  that  the  value 
of  the  precious  metals  is  partly  dependent  on  their  use  as 
currency.  *  *  *"  That  is  what  MacLeod  ignores  and 
what  Oresme  and  Koppernik  did  not. 

♦Claimed  as  "Grecham's  Law"  later  on. 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  139 

What  has  most  affected  the  "value"  of  silver  bullion  in 
the  ''market"?  According  to  the  Encyclopedia  Britannica 
the  yearly  production  of  silver  was  steady  at  forty  mil- 
lions to  forty-five  millions  of  dollars  ($5  to  the  £)  from 
the  great  gold  discoveries  of  1848-51  until  about  1870. 
Then  there  was  a  sudden  increase  to  seventy-five  milHons 
of  dollars  a  year  for  five  years.  "More  than  half  of  the 
supply  came  from  new  mines  opened  in  Nevada.  This 
increased  supply  was  accompanied  by  a  marked  deprecia- 
tion in  the  gold  price  of  silver,  though  the  prices  of  com- 
modities in  countries  having  a  silver  standard  did  not 
rise.  The  result  of  the  close  investigations  to  which  all 
aspects  of  the  question  were  subjected  was  to  show  that 
the  increased  production  of  silver  was  only  a  minor  ele- 
ment in  causing  its  depreciation.  The  policy  pursued 
by  various  states,  viz.:  (i)  Germany  and  the  Scandinavian 
States  in  adopting  a  single  gold  standard;  (2)  the  coun- 
tries composing  the  Latin  Union  in  limiting  the  coinage 
of  silver;  (3)  the  Indian  Government  by  adopting  a 
new  method  of  drawing  bills — proved  to  be  the  really 
influential  causes  for  the  decline  in  the  value  of  silver  as 
contrasted  with  gold."  In  a  foot-note  it  says:  "See,  for 
details,  the  report  of  Mr.  Goschen^s  committee,  1876,  and 
W.  Bagehat,  Papers  on  the  Depreciation  of  Silver." 

The  "Unanswerable"  MacLeod  is  a  man  after  Dog- 
berr)^^s  own  kind.  "Gentlemen  readers,  you  see  that  I 
have  searched  through  five  hundred  years  of  European 
history  and  shown  you  the  kings  and  princes  of  all  coun- 
tries making  and  unmaking  fiat  ratios  whenever  it  suited 
their  fancy.  What  other  proofs  could  you  ask  that  there 
is  no  such  thing  as  a  |iatural  ratio?"  Oresme  and  Kop- 
pernik  meant  market  price  under  natural  demand  and  sup- 
ply. MacLeod's  idea  that  market  price  of  wheat  under 
natural  demands  and  supply  and  under  the  bulling  and 


140  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

bearing  in  the  Chicago  *'pit"  by  artifice,  are  all  equally 
"market  price,"  or  "value  in  the  market,"  would  have 
astonis'hed  those  ancient  worthies  no  less  than  his  idea 
that  the  value  of  silver  bullion  under  inimical  fiat  or  under 
.  natural  right  is  equally  true  "market  value."  Again  put- 
ting the  whole  body  of  human  rights  in  place  of  the  one 
right  to  the  use  of  the  natural  medium  of  exchange  we 
would  have  the  dogma  that  natural  rights  are  what  men 
exercise  by  consent  of  kings,  not  what  they  claim.  The 
crucial  test  of  both  propositions  is  the  same.  There  are 
no  natural  rights — for  they  can  be  interfered  with  by  gov- 
ernments. There  is  no  natural  ratio — for  it  can  be  inter- 
fered with  by  governments. 

In  MacLeod's  article  he  quotes  from  Copernicus: 
"That  the  coins  of  gold  and  silver  must  bear  the  same 
ratio  to  each  other  as  the  metals  do  in  the  market."  If 
the  natural  ratio  of  15^  to  i  were  adopted  this  would  be  the 
case  at  once.  What  did  Koppernik  mean  by  the  ratio  that 
the  metals  bear  to  each  other  "in  the  market"?  Did  he 
mean  the  market  price  made  for  one  metal  by  an  artificial 
demand,  a  "bulling"  by  all  the  governments  in  the  world 
under  the  lash  and  bribe  of  all  the  Jewish  and  Aryan 
shylocks  in  the  world?  And  did  he  mean  the  cutting 
off  of  the  use  of  the  other,  the  "bearing"  of  it  by  the  same 
robbers  pushing  or  wheedling  the  governments?  Had 
Oresme  and  Koppernik  not  thought  that  there  is  a  natural 
ratio  between  gold  and  silver  they  would  have  said  so 
and  not  continued  to  talk  about  such  ratio.  When,  there- 
fore, MacLeod  bases  the  "Monometallist  Creed"  on  what 
they  wrote  he  must  (to  give  him  the  benefit  of  the  best 
interpretation)  have  meant  that  they  furnish  the  first  part 
of  the  creed  and  the  supposed  modern  discovery  that  there 
is  no  ratio  naturally  and  none  possible  artificially,  fur- 
nishes the  rest.    But  if  those  two  high  authorities,  Oresme 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  I4l 

and  Koppernik,  thought  there  is  a  natural  ''market  value" 
under  natural  and  equal  treatment  of  the  two  metals,  and 
there  is  not,  are  they  high  authorities?  If  they  thought 
that  it  is  the  nature  of  the  two  metals  to  have  no  steady 
parallelism  in  value,  why  did  they  not  say  so?  Why  did 
they  talk  about  a  ratio?  What  did  they  mean  by  conform- 
ing the  coin  value  to  the  market  value:  that  the  ratio 
must  be  changed  frequently  to  correspond  with  chang- 
ing "market  value"? 

Here  is  what  MacLeod's  wooden  "J^ss,"  Lord  Liver- 
pool, delivered  himself  of,  his  "great  masterpiece"  of  1805, 
digested  and  regurgitated  by  the  governor-general  of  In- 
dia and  now  for  the  first  time  made  public  by  MacLeod  "by 
courtesy  of  the  India  office":  "A  proportion  between  the 
gold  and  silver  coins  fixed  by  law,  according  to  the  value 
of  the  metals,  and  it  may  be  on  the  justest  principles,  but, 
owing  to  a  change  in  circumstances,  gold  may  become  of 
greater  value  in  relation  to  silver  than  at  the  time  the  pro- 
portion was  fixed:  it  therefore  becomes  proper  to  ex- 
change silver  for  gold ;  so  the  coin  of  that  metal  is  with- 
drawn from  circulation;  and  if  silver  should  increase  in 
value  in  relation  to  gold,  the  same  circumstances  would 
tend  to  reduce  the  quantity  of  silver  coins  in  circulation. 
As  it  is  impossible  to  prevent  the  fluctuations  in  the  value 
of  the  metals,  so  it  is  equally  impracticable  to  prevent  the 
consequences  thereof  in  the  coins  made  from  those 
metals."  Also:  "But  there  is  a  radical  defect  in  the  prin- 
ciple itself  of  giving  a  fixed  value  to  metals  in  coin  that  in 
their  nature  are  subject  to  continual  change."  They  inter- 
fere forcibly  and  put  the  two  metals  on  a  different  legal 
footing  and  then  declare  that  the  result  is  a  natural  and 
inevitable  one. 

All  erroneous  reasoning  destroys  itself,  and  here  the 
gold  fiatists  give  a  crucial  test  of  the  folly  of  what  they 


142  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

teach.  If  Lord  Liverpool's  last  sentence  above  quoted 
is  true  then  silver  coins  can  only  be  what  Mr.  Norman 
calls  them — promissory  notes;  and  when  men  write 
promissory  notes  on  a  material  worth  from  50  per  cent  to 
103  per  cent  of  their  face  value  (the  latter  figure  for  our 
silver  dollar  from  1834  to  1862  when,  per  Trenholm,  we 
were  on  a  gold  basis)  the  acme  of  asininity  has  been 
reached  by  man,  nor  is  there  any  use  in  looking  further 
for  the  intellectual  missing  Hnk  between  what  the  ape  is 
and  what  man  ought  to  be.  This  is  one  of  the  crucial  tests 
by  which  the  absurdity  of  gold  monometallism  is  shown. 
It  can  give  us  only  a  metal  that  cannot  be  money,  the 
common  medium  of  exchange,  and  another  on  which  we 
are  to  write  promissory  notes,  the  material  of  which  is 
worth  from  half  to  the  whole  of  the  face  of  the  promise  as 
material. 

Here  in  America,  where  the  shutting  up  of  silver  mines 
shut  up  many  other  theaters  of  industry  and  thereby  mur- 
dered sucklings,  drove  honest  women  into  harlotry  and 
laborers  into  crime  to  keep  from  starving,  we  have  been 
told  by  the  men  who  did  this  that  it  is  not  their  fault,  they 
are  only  obeying  a  law  of  nature.  They  are  very  sorry, 
indeed,  for  the  unfortunates,  but  the  impossibiUty  of  a 
ratio  leaves  nothing  to  be  done  except  "weed  out  the  weak- 
est and  let  the  strong  survive."  This  is  exactly  the  excuse 
long  made  for  oppressing  labor  in  England.  When  labor- 
ers and  just  men  who  plead  their  cause  said  anything 
about  the  oppression  they  were  met  with  Ricardo's  *'Iron 
Law  of  Wages,"  which  made  it  impossible  to  soften  the 
hard  fate  of  wage-workers.  Much  against  their  will  the 
wage-payers  were  forced  to  "shut  the  gates  of  mercy 
on  mankind."  There  was  the  law  of  nature,  just  as  in 
the  robber's  plea  that  there  is  no  natural  ratio.  There  is 
nothing  more  in  this  than  in  the  feeling  of  Attila,  who 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  143 

modestly  denied  that  he  was  a  butcher  of  men  of  his  own 
motion,  and  eagerly  grabbed  at  the  idea  that  God  was 
using  him  as  a  flail,  he  was  "The  Scourge  of  God." 

Lord  Liverpool,  the  early  English  titled  charlatan  in 
finance,  says  in  one  place  that  the  metals  change  with 
respect  to  each  other  by  "circumstances,"  and  lastly  that  it 
is  "by  nature"  that  they  are  subject  to  fluctuations.  He 
seems  not  to  see,  nor  does  MacLeod,  that  if  that  were  true 
he  has  proved  just  what  Locke  claimed — that  silver  alone 
is  money,  money  being  the  common  medium  of  exchange. 
Most  of  the  transactions  that  are  made — in  number  and 
in  value — cannot  be  made  with  gold  alone,  hence  it  does 
not  fulfill  the  definition. 

Silver  must  either  be  put  back  into  its  place  as  money 
or  else  taken  out  of  the  place  it  now  occupies  as  a  material 
on  which  nations  write  promissory  notes  for  the  payment 
of  money.  But  if  the  latter  be  done  the  paper-fiatists  will 
have  the  checkmate  on  their  brother  gold-fiatists  in  a  few 
more  moves.  If  governments  are  to  continue  to  issue 
promissory  money  to  supply  part  of  the  circulation  there 
is  no  good  reason  why  they  should  not  issue  it  all.  And 
there  is  no  reason  for  writing  its  promises  on  anything  but 
paper.  There  is  this  excellent  reason  for  ceasing  to  write 
them  on  silver,  to-wit:  that  they  will  be  duplicated  by 
private  enterprise  so  skilfully  that  no  one  can  tell  the  gen- 
uine from  the  counterfeit.  Weston  in  effect  said  in  his 
book,  "Money,"  that  demonetization  of  silver  meant  the 
ultimate  demonetization  of  gold.  That  is,  monometallism 
means  at  last  no  metallism.  What  will  the  promise  relate 
to  then? 

In  April,  1894,  the  Secretary  of  Agriculture  in  a  Bos- 
ton speech,  said:  "There  is  no  infant  industry  so  thor- 
oughly encouraged  and  protected  to-day  in  the  United 
States  as  that  of  counterfeiting.    The  generous  counter- 


144  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

feiter  can  afford  to-day,  with  silver  at  62  cents  an  ounce, 
to  put  in  his  dollar  480  grains  and  then  have 
a  profit  on  his  infant  industry  as  a  counterfeiter  of  thirty- 
eight  cents.  Or  putting  only  41 2J  grains  of  silver  in  his 
dollar,  making  a  dollar  no  heavier  than  his  government 
coins,  the  cheerful  counterfeiter  can  make  just  sixty-seven 
cents  on  each  ounce  of  silver  he  surreptitiously  slams  into 
circulation  by  his  craft."  But  if  man's  natural  right  to  use 
silver  without  limit  as  money  be  not  given  back  its  bul- 
lion value  may  become  still  less.  Does  he  mean  that  the 
counterfeiter  would  not  make  halves,  quarters  and  dimes 
(because,  perhaps,  he  is  too  "generous,"  or  it  does  not 
make  him  as  "cheerful"  as  making  whole  dollars  does),  or 
does  he  propose  to  fill  the  space  between  the  nickel  five 
cent  coin  and  the  $2.50  gold  piece  by  some  new  device 
that  he  is  holding  back?  If  the  banks  issue  $1  and  $2 
bills,  or  if  the  treasury  continue  to  issue  them,  will  they 
only  be  redeemable  in  quantities?  If  the  coins  under  $1 
are  to  be  promissory  notes  of  the  government  written  on 
silver  costing  from  half  to  the  whole  of  their  face  value, 
it  will  be  "generous"  on  the  part  of  the  government,  but 
the  people  would  be  more  "cheerful"  if  they  were  written 
on  paper,  if  they  are  not  made,  as  they  should  be,  and 
as  they  were  in  the  law  of  1792  and  1837,  halves,  quarters 
and  tenths  of  the  dollar  by  weight  and  the  dollar  of  silver 
restored  to  its  place.  Perhaps  Mr.  Morton  "hath  an 
alchemy"  by  which  he  is  going  to  fill  the  space  in  his  "sys- 
tem" between  the  five  cent  coin  of  nickel  and  the  $2.50 
gold  piece  and  that  he  will  spring  on  the  country  as  a 
surprise. 

In  proof  that  there  is  no  "destruction  of  silver"  as  money 
Wells  refers  to  $77,000,000  of  smaller  coins  than  a  dol- 
lar. These,  and  according  to  Cleveland,  some  hundreds 
of  millions  of  silver  dollars,  are  promissory  notes.    To 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  145 

talk  about  destruction  of  silver  as  money  is  ''concrete  non- 
sense, the  offspring  of  profound  ignorance  and  charla- 
tanry." (Wells,  Forum,  October,  1893.)  But  to  write 
promissory  notes  on  silver  disks  costing  from  half  to  the 
whole  of  their  face  value  must  be  discrete  or  discreet  wis- 
dom, and  come  from  the  father  of  v/isdom  who  is  burst- 
ing with  it.  There  is  an  earnest,  pig-headed  gravity  about 
such  proposals  and  proposers  that  extinguishes  one's  im- 
patience and  confines  one  to  the  indulgence  in  the  wish 
that  Schoeppenstedt  would  keep  her  citizens  at  home  and 
writing  material  out  of  their  hands.  If  it  were  true  that 
no  steady  ratio  between  gold  and  silver  is  possible  it  would 
mean,  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  slavery  party,  that 
silver  must  be  given  up  for  us  as  subsidiary  coin,  too. 
The  pretense  that  there  can  be  no  fixed  ratio  leads  into 
worse  difficulties  than  it  pretends  to  free  from.  It  requires 
MacLeod  to  use  silver  as  limited-money  in  disobedience 
to  those  very  principles  that  he  quotes  from  Oresme. 

But  what  must  be  thought  of  serious  men,  who  pose  as 
philosophers  and  as  teachers  of  mankind,  who  think  that 
such  a  money  "system" — full  legal  tender  gold  coins  made 
for  the  owners  of  the  bullion,  and  promissory  notes  of 
governments  written  on  silver  whose  value  as  metal  is 
half  (and  upwards)  as  great  as  its  redeemable  value,  cir- 
culating together  are  according  to  the  principles  of  the 
science  of  money!  Can  that  be  called  a  "system"?  What 
kind  of  a  thing  would  it  be  when  a  philosopher  had  fin- 
ished writing  it  up  in  explanation,  and  as  a  practical  ex- 
planation of  the  applied  science  of  money  !*  What  in  the 
world  he  meant  by  putting  two  such  witnesses  as  Oresme 
and  Copernicus  on  the  stand  to  defend  the  gold-fiat  prac- 

♦Neither  mighty  "Lord  Liverpad"  nor  his  doughty  Scotch 
and  American  Sancho  Panzas  can  write  like  simpletons  and  be 
respected  as  economists. 


146  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

ticcwhen  they  are  both  for  the  natural  theory  of  money,  I 
cannot  see.  As  General  Lee  politely  remarked  of  a  Fed- 
eral general's  blunder  in  his  front:  "He  seems  not  to  be 
aware  of  his  situation." 

"Now  mark  how  plain  a  tale  shall  put  thee  down," 
whether  English  Falstafif  or  American  imitator  or  com- 
panion, it  being  a  part  of  the  basis  of  fact  on  which  rests 
the  science  of  money  that  I  have  never  found  stated  by 
any  other  person;  a  complete  disproof  of  gold-basis  fiat- 
ism's  basic  position. 

1st.  The  cost  of  production  of  the  world's  gold  and  sil- 
ver is  greater  than  their  purchasing  power. 

2d.  The  natural  demand  for  each  of  them  is  forevet  be- 
yond the  supply. 

This  is  parallelism  in  exchanging.  They  are  thus  pro- 
duced on  parallel  lines  of  cost.  They  will  exchange  for 
an  indefinitely  long  time  on  parallel  lines  of  quantities 
or  values  when  the  natural  demand  is  not  interfered  with 
by  statute  backed  by  force,  because  the  demand  in  the 
case  of  each  of  them  is  forever  beyond  the  supply  when 
uninterfered  with  artificially,  and  because  each  measurably 
does  the  other's  work  in  case  of  need.  The  public  has 
been  favored  with  sundry  English  fairy  tales  about  the 
trifling  cost  of  silver  in  certain  mines.  Norman  rehashes 
some  of  these.  But  like  all  fairy  tales,  they  are  for  chil- 
dren in  intellect.  Our  Nevada  senators,  among  the  high- 
est authorities  in  the  world,  will  back  my  position  on  the 
cost  of  the  metals.  Vast  amounts  of  gold  were  taken 
out  of  placers  in  California  at  a  less  cost  per  pound  than 
equal  weights  of  silver  have  been  taken  out  at  great  depths 
and  by  expensive  machinery  since  in  Nevada.  The  cost 
cuts  no  figure.  Natural  demand  and  natural  supply  make 
the  natural  exchangeable  value.  If  all  the  utilitarian  and 
esthetic  employments  of  gold  were  to  fail  at  once,  it  would 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  147 

be  of  less  exchangeable  value  than  lead,  and  "sound 
finance"  vs.  sense  finance  would  at  once  sound  the  cry 
that  the  bonds  can  no  more  be  paid  in  gold  than  in  silver 
without  "dishonor."  Gold  would  suddenly  become  ex- 
ceedingly "dishonest."  It  is  a  contract  whose  terms  the 
creditor  can  change  at  will,  if  we  are  to  believe  the  creditor. 
Turning  this  way  and  that  for  supporting  arguments, 
gold-fiatists,  notably  Bonamy  Price  and  Norman,  try  to 
make  "cost  of  production"  work  for  them.  When  wares 
come  into  market  we  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  cost 
of  production.  They  must  sell  "for  what  they  will  bring." 
The  producer  may  produce  less  hereafter  because  they  are 
low  in  price  now,  but  he  cannot  increase  the  demand.  If 
supply  is  less  than  demand  he  may  get  more,  if  greater 
he  may  have  to  take  less  than  cost  of  production.  But 
is  not  that  in  both  cases  supply  and  demand  setting  price? 
Bonamy  Price  says:  "The  value-giving  factors  in  the 
substance  or  service  obtained  may  be  more  or  less  than 
the  value-giving  factors  in  the  substance  or  service  given. 
If  they  are  less,  the  substance  or  service  offered  will  cease 
to  be  produced  or  rendered."  Let  us  see.  The  money 
paid  for  lottery  tickets  is  vastly  greater  in  volume  than 
what  comes  back  to  the  whole  body  of  buyers,  yet  they 
are  so  ready  to  give  more  than  they  get  that  force  of  legis- 
lation is  needed  to  stop  them.  The  importance  of  prac- 
tical knowledge,  of  experience,  of  observation  on  the  spot, 
is  shown  by  Bonamy  Price's  erroneous  reasoning  from 
lack  of  such  knowledge  and  observation.  He  said  (Inter- 
nat  Rev.) :  "If  the  money  is  gold  the  gold  miner  will  not 
go  on  procuring  it  if  he  is  not  satisfactorily  rewarded  for 
his  cost  and  his  outlay."  This  shows  a  total  ignorance  of 
the  nature  of  gold  and  silver  miners  and  failure  to  see 
the  lottery  lure  in  mining.  They  think  of  it  by  day  and 
dream  of  it  by  night.    They  work  as  woodmen,  or  grad- 


148  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

ers,  or  anything,  and  around  the  fire  at  night  they  tell  of 
places  where  gold  can  be  scooped  up  with  a  tin  cup,  but 
where  the  skeletons  of  prospectors  killed  by  Indians  are 
bleaching;  of  cemented  gold  nuggets  and  of  wire  silver 
purer  than  coin,  but  lying  in  mountains  where  water  must 
be  packed  on  mules  a  hundred  miles  .or  more  and  where 
the  heat  makes  the  journey  like  a  descent  into  hell.  Even 
when  in  mines  that  pay  them  well  they  will  hear  only  a 
rumor  of  another  far  richer,  and  even  in  the  night  a  whole 
camp  will  ''stampede,"  and  be  gone  by  sunrise  the  next 
day.  The  bright  sun  shining  on  glittering  nuggets  and 
dust  of  gold  lying  against  the  cleats  of  a  sluice  box  are  to 
the  miner  an  earnest  of  the  fruition  of  all  his  hopes  of 
earthly  happiness.  He  sees  in  it  a  "home  stake,"  and  if 
he  gets  the  home  is  miserable  in  it  for  lack  of  the  excite- 
ment of  mining  life.  Men  will  grope  and  moil  under 
ground  and  be  almost  in  daily  risk  of  life  and  limb  in  dark- 
ness and  dampness,  but  as  they  watch  the  delicate  sprays 
of  pure  silver  forming  on  top  of  a  "brick"  as  the  last  gases 
pour  out  and  cause  the  "vegetating,"  they  feel  better  re- 
warded than  if  half  the  work  on  the  surface  had  brought 
them  double  the  food  and  clothing,  to  be  enjoyed  amid  all 
earth's  flowers. 

The  gold  miner  will  go  on  prospecting  and  getting  just 
enough  to  keep  him  following  it  up,  like  those  buyers  of 
lottery  tickets  who  get  the  $io  and  $15  prizes  and  go  on 
spending  hundreds  for  more  tickets  in  hopes  of  getting 
the  capital  prize.  When  the  chronic  prospector  has  spent 
his  means  and  got  from  time  to  time  a  little  gold  dust, 
and  his  case  been  that  ofythe  man  who  "took  one  step  for- 
ward and  two  back,"  he  finds  some  one  who  gives  him 
a  "grub-stake,"  and  he  goes  on  spending  the  money  of 
others  in  the  same  way  that  he  did  his  own,  and  getting 
a  little  gold  back.    But  though  thousands  of  men  have 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  149 

done  thisi  for  about  forty  years  in  this  country  and  Austra- 
lia, this  expense  and  return  is  small  compared  to  what 
mining  companies  have  done.  They  do  on  a  large  scale 
what  the  chronic  prospector  does  on  a  small  one.  Usually 
a  mine  is  developed  as  far  as  the  money  of  its  first  own- 
ers will  carry  it.  When  that  gives  out  it  is  stocked  and 
then  begins  the  spending  of  other  people's  money.  That 
the  amount  of  money  and  labor  used  in  producing  the 
world's  supply  of  gold  and  silver  is  more,  expressed  in 
dollars,  than  the  gold  and  silver  are  worth  if  coined  at 
the  rate  of  i  to  15  J  will  be  doubted  by  no  candid  person 
who  will  take  the  trouble  to  learn  the  facts. 

Twenty  years  ago  an  intelligent  mining  expert  of 
Nevada  told  me  that  in  his  opinion  five  dollars  went  in 
there  for  every  one  dollar  that  came  out.  Without  accept- 
ing these  figures  it  shows  how  the  case  impressed  those 
on  the  spot  and  well  situated  for  judging.  Certain  ones 
got  out  more  than  they  put  in,  but  the  multitude  put  more 
into  stocks  than  they  got  out.  And  that  was  not  all  the 
cost.  It  is  altogether  likely  that  the  gold  taken  out  in  Cali- 
fornia for  one  or  two  years  was  worth  more  than  it  cost, 
putting  in  everything  that  ought  to  go  in  as  part  of  the 
cost.  This  shows  that  the  production  of  the  two  money 
metals  on  "parallel  lines  of  cost"  will  not  regulate  their 
ratio  to  each  other  after  they  are  produced.  It  is  unques- 
tionably true  that  the  cost  of  the  precious  metals  is  much 
greater  than  their  exchangeable  value,  if  we  take  the  vol- 
ume entire,  from  the  beginning  of  the  world  to  the  pres- 
ent day,  or  if  we  take  any  great  period.  There  are  occa- 
sional finds  of  gold  as  well  as  of  silver,  where  the  profit 
over  the  cost  is  very  great.  These  may,  as  in  Colorado 
or  Nevada,  be  over  a  large  district  and  for  a  consider- 
able length  of  time.  But  this  happens  as  well  in  the  case 
of  gold  if  used  as  the  only  money.    In  such  a  case  what 


150  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

would  become  of  the  "fund-holders"?  How  are  their  in- 
terests to  be  protected?  How  will  governments  save 
them  then  from  the  efifects  of  nature's  generosity  and 
man's  industry?  People  living  in  such  countries  as  Eng- 
land, that  are  worked  out,  forget  the  fact  that  there  is 
room  in  Africa,  America  and  Australia  alone  for  more 
money  of  both  metals  than  the  earth  is  likely  ever  to  give 
up.  It  will  be  a  sorry  day  for  the  progress  and  develop- 
ment of  the  new  countries  when  the  energies  of  the  bold 
and  brave  and  enterprising  are  held  in  check  for  the  pur- 
pose of  "protecting"  fund-holders  and  receivers  of  fixed 
incomes.  That  would  be  near  to  a  condition  in  which  the 
living  are  governed  by  the  dead. 

The  fact  remains  that  there  is  a  natural  and  constant 
ratio  between  these  two  commodities.  The  cause  is  found 
in  several  circumstances.  One  is  that  the  quantity  in  ex- 
istence, or  that  man  can  get,  of  each,  in  proportion  to  the 
other,  is  remarkably  steady,  and  that  they  are  like  two 
horses  pulling  a  wagon  by  a  double-tree;  when  for  any 
reason  one  lags  the  other  can,  within  bounds,  do  the  work 
of  both.  (Silver  is  the  stronger  horse ;  it  could  do  all  the 
work,  do  the  exchanging  both  great  and  small ;  gold  could 
not.)  The  quantity  of  each  in  existence  and  the  proportion 
of  each  coined  are  factors  in  making  the  ratio.  But  fiat 
ought  to  be  absent  to  enable  one  to  figure  closely  on  that. 
Another  circumstance  is  that  these  two  metals  are  so 
nearly  physically  the  same.  The  reason  that  these  two 
metals  are  so  nearly  of  the  same  physical  disposition  is 
understood  by  remembering  that  all  forms  of  matter  are 
probably  reducible  to  one ;  that  all  forms  of  matter  in  our 
system  were  once  one,  and  that  in  the  diflferencing  that 
has  taken  place  in  the  course  of  the  evolution  of  our  sys- 
tem these  two,  so  to  speak,  have  kept  nearer  to  each  other. 
They  are  like  twins  in  a  large  family;  more  like  each  other 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  151 

than  like  any  other  brother  or  sister;  more  like  each 
other  than  like  any  other  chemical  element. 

The  whole  science  of  economics  takes  for  granted  the 
truth  of  the  principles  of  the  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence. If  it  were  true  that  money  is  solely  a  creation  of  law 
then  there  could  be  no  science  of  money.  It  would  be 
just  as  improper  an  expression  as  to  speak  of  the  science 
of  distorting  (or  improving  according  to  Flathead  opin- 
ion) the  skulls  of  Flathead  Indian  children.  There  could 
only  be  the  art  of  creating  money  by  legislation.  So  it  is 
with  the  ratio  of  exchangeable  value  of  gold  to  silver.  It 
is  based  on  the  principles  of  the  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence, under  which  every  one  in  the  world  has  a  right  to 
use  as  money  all  the  gold  and  all  the  silver  that  he  can 
get;  and  the  interference  with  that  right  in  respect  to 
either,  or  the  substitution  of  anything  else  for  either,  or 
the  addition  to  them  of  anything  else  to  serve  as  money, 
by  statute  backed  by  force,  is  interference  with  man's  nat- 
ural rights,  is  tyranny,  is  of  the  same  nature  as  chattel 
slavery.  There  is  a  certain  "expectation  of  life"  that 
makes  life  insurance  almost  an  exact  science.  But  the 
tables  are  no  guide  among  slaves  whose  masters  can  kill 
them  at  will,  nor  in  the  kingdom  of  Dahomey,  nor  as  ap- 
plied to  armies  in  war  time.  Tables  of  the  expectation  of 
life  are  based  on  the  principles  of  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence, that  all  men  have  an  equal  right  to  life,  liberty 
and  the  pursuit  of  happiness,  and  will  be  protected  there- 
in. The  lives  of  men  in  nations  living  in  extreme  degrees 
of  defiance  of  those  principles  cannot  be  valued  by  those 
tables. 

Where  man's  right  to  life,  liberty  and  the  pursuit  of 
happiness  is  enforced  by  the  government  men's  lives  have 
a  money  value.  It  can  be  so  closely  found  out  in  each 
individual  case  that  large  capital  is  devoted  to  insuring 


152  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

their  lives  and  it  is  one  of  the  safest  and  most  definite  in 
its  returns  of  any  form  of  investment.  Suppose  the  Arme- 
nian widows  or  children  of  the  victims  of  the  Turk's 
ferocity  were  to  ask  him  to  pay  them  the  value  of  the  hus- 
bands and  fathers  butchered  because  they  are  Christians, 
and  he  were  to  answer:  "Their  lives  have  no  money 
value  on  account  of  our  known  custom  of  butchering  them 
whenever  we  feel  like  it,  as  we  can  prove  by  asking  any 
of  the  actuaries  of  Hfe  insurance  companies  among  the 
infidel  Christians."  MacLeod  wrote  his  paper  to  prove 
that  there  is  no  natural  ratio,  which  is  the  basis  of  "the 
Monometallist  Creed."  If  he  were  to  deny  that  there  are 
inalienable  natural  rights  of  any  kind  and  prove  it  by 
showing  that  nowhere  in  the  world  is  there  a  government 
that  does  not  take  some  of  them  away  from  their  owners, 
or  that  they  are  not  self-enforcing,  it  would  be  an  exactly 
the  same  sort  of  proof  as  this  Turkish  logic  or  that  by 
which  he  shows  that  there  can  be  no  ratio. 

In  the  same  interview  quoted  from  above  "Secretary 
Morton  answers  the  question  recently  put  by  Senator 
Stewart  and  others  as  to  what  sound  money  is. 

"  The  President's  critics,'  said  the  Secretary,  'ask  what 
is  sound  money.  Any  man  of  business  may  answer  that 
question.  "Sound  money"  is  that  sort  of  currency  which 
has  the  most  universal  and  least  fluctuating  purchasing 
power  in  the  markets  of  all  countries.  That  money  is  the 
"soundest"  for  which,  throughout  the  commerce  of  the 
civilized  world,  there  is  the  most  universal  demand.  And 
that  universal  demand  is  always  based  upon  the  universal 
and  unfluctuating  purchasing  power  of  that  money.' " 

That  is,  being  interpreted,  what  is  left  from  fiat's  sweep- 
ing destruction  as  it  passes  over  the  world  is  "sound 
money."  Again  test  their  money  doctrine  by  putting 
other  rights  for  man's  natural  right  in  respect  to  money: 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  l5^ 

what  is  natural  right?  By  Morton  logic  it  is  what  the 
largest  number  of  nations  leave;  "the  most  universal  and 
unfluctuating"  right — and  it  is  unquestionably  the  right  to 
pay  taxes. 

Morton  is  a  remarkably  fine  example  of  those  who, 
having  made  silver  bullion  fluctuate  according  to  an  arti- 
ficial and  fiat-made  "standard,"  plead  their  own  wrong  for 
their  own  justification  and  benefit.  And  in  the  last  sen- 
tence quoted  from  him  it  is  seen  that  he,  like  Professor 
Summer,  thinks  perpetual  rest  is  possible  and  is  realized 
in  the  purchasing  power  of  gold.  In  what  MacLeod  gets 
from  Oresme  and  Koppernik  there  is  this  sentiment: 
"That  it  is  robbery  for  the  prince  to  change  the  denom- 
ination, diminish  the  weight,  or  debase  the  purity  of  his 
coins."  Why  is  it  robbery?  It  is  because  it  makes  a  man 
take  less  than  he  agreed  to  take  on  the  obHgations  of 
others  that  he  holds.  Now  if  by  eliminating  one  of  the 
metals  the  government  makes  the  other  party  to  the  con- 
tract give  .more  than  he  agreed  to  give,  is  not  that  a  rob- 
bery of  the  same  nature  that  those  great  men  warned  their 
princes  against  committing?  The  county  in  which  I  live 
owes  a  large  debt  which  it  pays  in  great  part  by  selling 
wheat.  Demonetization  lowered  its  price.*  One  of  the 
largest  holders  of  these  bonds  outlined  the  robber  plan  by 
which  the  latest  steps  toward  complete  demonetization 
were  taken.  It  would  be  a  misuse  of  words  to  say  that  one 
is  a  common  thief  who  aids  the  plan  by  which  those  who 
ought  in  fairness  to  pay  one  bushel  of  wheat  must  sub- 

*The  pretense  that  man's  own  energy,  control  of  the  forces 
of  nature,  etc.,  are  the  cause  of  low  prices,  advanced  by  D.  A. 
Wells  in  Forum,  Oct.  1893,  is  answered  by  me  in  Arena,  Dec. 
1894.  One  item  is  that  the  same  railroads  that  opened  up  new 
wheat  fields  in  Dakota  opened  up  new  silver  mines  in  Montana. 
One  was  left  to  its  natural  uses;  the  other  (in  which  the  first 
one's  price  is  quoted)  is  crippled  by  fiat.  So  what  is  left  as 
money  goes  apart  from  wheat. 


154  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

mit  to  the  very  uncommon  theft  of  having  to  pay  about 
three  or  four  times  what  they  owe.  Does  MacLeod  see 
there  is  no  difference  in  principle  in  robbing  creditors  by 
making  them  take  money  that  is  made  cheap  by  debase- 
ment with  alloy,  and  in  robbing  debtors  by  making  them 
pay  money  made  artificially  scarce  and  dear  by  legislation? 
Except  the  Britannica,  all  of  the  gold-fiatists,  so  far  as  I 
know,  say  that  it  was  not  demonetization  that  lowered 
the  price  of  silver,  but  that  remonetization  would  raise  it. 
They  cry  out  that  that  is  ''rascally"  and  "inflation." 
(Wells,  Forum,  October,  1894.) 

"b)  The  older  English  advocates  of  the  gold  standard 
have  found  their  best  representative  in  Lord  Liverpool 
and  Tooke.  The  former  of  these  adopted  the  argument 
used  by  Petty,  Locke  and  Harris,  that  only  one  metal  can 
be  the  standard  of  value  at  a  given  time,  but  he  held  that 
the  advance  of  England  in  wealth  rendered  gold  a  more 
suitable  material  than  silver  for  the  principal  money." 
(Enc.  Brit.,  "Money.")  If  "the  advance  of  England  in 
wealth"  be  analyzed  it  will  be  found  exactly  the  same  as 
the  phenomenal  increase  of  millionaires  on  one  hand  and 
beggars  on  the  other  in  America  since  silver  was  demon- 
etized; most  of  that  wealth  is  stolen.  The  bonds  of 
municipalities,  the  mortgages  on  farms  that  have  been 
made  harder  to  pay,  as  they  have  been,  by  demonetizing 
silver,  represent  the  same  sort  of  property  that  the  old  bills 
of  sale  of  slaves  did.  Most  of  the  farm  mortgages  are  in 
the  hands  of  those  who  so  reduced  the  prices  of  farm 
products  by  manipulating  coinage  and  banking  laws  that 
the  farmer  ran  behind  and  they  were  there  to  lend  him 
the  credit  of  the  government  and  charge  him  interest  on 
it.* 

*The  phenomena  of  this  system  of  slavery  answer  closely 
all  the  way  through  to  those  of  the  other  system  in  which  my 
fathers  and  kin  were  involved.    The  "advance  of"  the  slave- 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  ISS 

MacLeod^s  older  and  later  authorities  contradict  each 
Other.  If  Oresme  and  Koppernik  made  anything  plain 
it  was  that  they  thought  that  the  only  right  the  sovereign 
power  could  justly  exercise  in  respect  to  coins  was  to  leave 
them  where  nature  puts  them.  Koppernik  said:  "2.  That 
all  the  prince  or  the  law  can  do  is  to  maintain  the  coins 
at  their  full  legal  weight,  purity  and  denomination.^'  Lord 
Liverpool  held  "that  by  law  the  power  lay  in  the  sover- 
eign to  settle  the  standard,  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  he  con- 
tended that  gold  was  actually  at  that  time  (1805)  the  Eng- 
lish standard  in  common  estimation."  (Enc.  Brit, 
"Money.")  It  is  as  plain  as  anything  can  be  that  the  con- 
ditions in  the  time  of  Oresme  and  one  hundred  and  sixty 
years  later  in  that  of  Koppernik  were  natural,  i.  e.,  gold  and 
silver  were  costing  more  to  get  than  they  were  worth,  and 
the  demand  for  them  both  was  beyond  the  supply.  And 
there  was  no  paper  or  other  substitute  to  help  to  bedevil 
the  conditions.  Such  changes  in  quantity  as  occur  do 
not  affect  the  market  value  or  natural  ratio,  because  it 
still  leaves  the  demand  for  both  greater  than  the  supply, 
and  because  like  the  two  horses  pulling  by  a  double-tree 
each  can  and  does  measurably  do  the  other's  work.  But 
what  is  Lord  Liverpool's  position?  That  the  sovereign 
may  do  away  with  the  money  quality  of  one  of  the  metals 
entirely;  may  reduce  it 'to  the  position  of  a  material  on 
which  promissory  notes  are  written.  But  one  has  only  to 
see  that  the  market  value  of  silver  in  the  English  coins 
is  about  sixty  per  cent  of  their  money  value,  and  read  from 
Koppernik:  "5.  That  the  coins  of  gold  and  silver  must 
bear  the  same  ratio  to  each  other  as  the  metals  do  in  the 

holders  in  "wealth"  of  the  "black  ivory"  description  made  them 
want  the  territories  to  give  them  room;  just  as  these  foreign  and 
domestic  slaveholders  are  trying  to  get  silver  destroyed  as 
money  and  thus  make  room  for  their  "wealth"  monetized  as 
bills  of  banks,  with  the  scarce  gold  as  a  "basis." 


156  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

market"— to  see  what  a  laughing  stock  the  "Unanswer- 
able" MacLeod  makes  of  himself.  And  his  wooden  god, 
Lord  Liverpool,  in  order  to  be  consistent,  if  alive  to-day, 
ought  to  order  a  nightly  recoinage  of  the  silver  coins  so 
as  to  be  always  conformed  in  "market  value"  to  coinage 
value,  to  be  ready  for  use  next  day. 

In  his  learned-air  rigmarole,  "The  People's  Money," 
published  by  Putnam's,  written  to  get  the  people  to  give 
up  their  determination  to  use  their  money,  W.  L.  Tren- 
holm  says: 

"In  every  country,  and  in  every  race,  there  was  a  sim- 
ilar progression,  beginning  with  rude  materials  of  low 
intrinsic  value,  and  advancing  toward  finer  materials  of 
higher  intrinsic  value. 

"There  must,  therefore,  be  a  natural  law  governing 
this  progression;  a  natural  law  which  tends  always  to 
establish  as  the  standard  of  value  the  material  of  highest 
intrinsic  value  available  at  the  time.  If  there  is  such  a 
natural  law,  it  must  be  still  operative,  and  to  its  effect  we 
may  attribute  the  steadfast  movement  of  modern  nations 
toward  silver  as  the  general  standard  of  value,  when  cop- 
per ceased  to  be  adequate,  and  now  toward  gold,  when 
silver  is  no  longer  adequate." 

He  may  be  excused  for  not  knowing  how  silly  that 
would-be  learned  deliverance  sounds  in  the  light  of  the 
philological  evidence  hereinbefore  given;  but  he  can- 
not be  excused  for  putting  the  action  of  the  powerful  and 
remorseless  Jewish  money  lenders  of  Europe  and  their 
English  co-conspirators  up  as  a  "progression"  under  a 
"natural  law."    He  says  also: 

"The  natural  laws  that  control  the  currents  of  the  air, 
anB  the  formation  and  condensation  of  clouds,  are  not 
more  constant  than  are  the  natural  laws  that  control  the 
currents  of  commerce,  and  the  distribution  of  capital.    It 


tH^  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  ISV 

is  natural  law  alone  that  has  gradually  maxie  gold  the 
prime  standard  of  value.  Thus  it  came  about  that  Great 
Britain  was  the  first  nation  to  adopt  the  single  gold  stand- 
ard (1816),  while  for  a  long  time  afterward  other  nations 
did  very  well  without  it.  The  principal  countries  of  Con- 
tinental Europe  were  commercially  isolated  by  the  pro- 
tective system,  and  their  bimetallic  currencies  supplied 
not  only  the  needs  of  domestic  circulation,  but  gold  for 
trade  with  gold  countries,  and  silver  for  trade  with  the 
South  and  East." 

Truly  an  interesting  picture  and  a  very  scientific  de- 
scription that  of  ''the  principal  countries  of  Europe"  keep- 
ing "natural  laws,"  cooling  their  heels,  so  to  speak,  at 
their  national  boundaries  and  limited  to  Great  Britain  as 
their  field  of  action  for  three-score  and  ten  years.  'This 
is  excellent  sport,  i'  faith."  "He  doth  it  as  much  like  one 
of  those  harlotry  players  as  I  ever  see."  Perhaps  if  some 
of  our  western  states  would  try  the  protective  system  they 
could  isolate  themselves  thereby  from  the  workings  of 
"the  natural  laws  that  control  the  currents  of  the  air," 
which  are  "not  more  constant  than  are  the  natural  laws 
that  control  the  currents  of  commerce,"  but  that  artificial 
"protective  systems"  did  control  all  the  same  for  some 
three-score  years  with  nothing  but  a  narrow  sea  between. 

To  those  who  are  not  Tories  or  conspirators  I  call  the 
especial  attention  to  the  sneer  of  the  serf  of  "Cleveland 
Street"  royalty  and  "nobility,"  Henry  Dunning  MacLeod, 
that  is  hidden  in  one  word  and  flung  at  Jefferson's  im- 
mortal document,  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  He 
says  in  his  article  in  the  Nineteenth  Century  Magazine 
that  the  kings  of  France  after  Charlemagne  considered 
it  part  of  their  "inalienable  divine  right,"  to  make  their 
subjects  accept  their  debased  coin.  The  phrase  as  usually 
used  is  simply  "divine  right  of  kings,"  for  if  a  "divine" 


IS^  tae  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHIC. 

right  the  word  "inalienable"  is  useless.  But  it  shows  that 
even  he  sees  that  if  he  were  to  acknowledge  the  binding 
force  of  the  principle  that  men  are  born  with  an  "inaHen- 
able  right  to  life,  liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness," 
and  that  "all  men  are  created  equal,"  then  it  follows  that 
men  cannot  make  vast  contracts  in  the  money  of  nature 
and  force  the  debtors  to  pay  it  in  money  made  artificially 
dear  by  legislation.  Norman  does  the  science  of  money  a 
service  in  that  he  so  clearly  xwrites  up  the  pseudo-science 
of  money.   He  asks: 

"VII.  Have  you  made  up  your  mind  upon  the  ques- 
tion. Is  money  anything  but  a  commodity?  Do  you 
know  that  the  only  important  difference  betvx^een  the 
views  of  a  monometallist  and  a  bimetallist  is  that  the 
former  maintains  that  money  is  nothing  more  than  a  com- 
modity, by  which  is  meant  that  as  copper  and  tin  are  pro- 
duced under  the  laws  of  barter,  so  gold  and  silver  are 
produced  under  the  laws  of  barter;  that  as  copper  and  tin 
exchange  with  each  other,  and  for  other  substances  in 
near  relation  to  the  value-giving  factors  each  substance 
contains  under  unrestricted  trade,  so  do  gold  and  silver 
and  other  commodities  exchange  with  each  other  under 
similar  provisions;  that  they  are  produced  and  distributed 
under  the  laws  of  cost  of  production  and  supply  and  de- 
mand, just  as  other  substances  are." 

The  fallacy  that  the  cost  of  production  of  money  is  the 
same  factor  in  its  exchangeable  value  that  it  is  in  the  case 
of  copper  and  tin,  arises  from  overlooking  the  fact  that 
gold  and  silver  are,  in  addition  to  being  commodities  and 
having  a  commodity  exchange  value,  the  medium  of  ex- 
change. Their  exchange  value,  i.  e.,  their  market  price, 
is  afifected  by  the  number  of  contracts  about  all  other  com- 
modities, for  such  contracts  make  a  demand  for  the 
medium  of  exchange.    If,  therefore,  the  \'olume  of  gold 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  159 

and  silver  money,  or  money  of  either,  remain  the  same, 
determined  by  the  cost  of  procuring  them,  as  Norman  says 
it  is  determined,  and  the  number  of  contracts  payable  in 
money  be  greatly  increased  the  demand  for  it  would  in- 
crease and  it  would  take  more  of  labor  or  commodity  to 
get  the  same  quantity  of  money  that  less  labor  and  a 
smaller  quantity  of  a  given  commodity  would  fetch  before. 
But  that  any  one  of  ordinary  intelligence  should  gravely 
argue  and  seem  to  believe  that  gold  as  money  and  silver 
as  the  medium  on  which  promissory  notes  are  written  in 
England,  are  on  the  same  footing  relatively  as  copper  to 
tin,  is  only  laughable.  Even  were  it  not  true  that  the 
owners  of  gold  and  silver  have  an  indefeasible  right  to  use 
them  as  money  without  limit  it  would  still  be  inexcusable 
in  any  one  of  ordinary  intelligence  and  honesty  to  try  to 
palm  off  the  "supply  and  demand"  argument  and  not 
notice  that  the  supply  of  metal  money  had  been  changed 
by  legislation  and  the  supply  of  other  commodities  left 
to  nature's  generosity  and  man's  industry. 

The  hint  in  MacLeod's  last  sentence  is  worth  all  the 
rest  of  the  article.  After  saying  that  every  government  in 
Europe  vainly  tried  for  five  hundred  years  and  abandoned 
the  attempt  to  maintain  bimetallism,  he  says:  "This 
course  of  statesmen  who  are  responsible  for  the  adminis- 
tration of  great  states  is  of  infinitely  more  worth  than 
any  number  of  writers.'^  Which  means :  Whatever  reason 
or  right  may  say,  the  practical  question  in  national  finan- 
ces is  to  keep  the  crown  on  the  sovereign's  head,  and 
every  statesman  knows  that  the  great  money  lenders,  if 
not  king-makers,  could  quickly  become  king-breakers. 

The  conspirators  of  gold-basis  fiatism  declare  that  we 
have  reached  a  new  epoch  in  the  world  and  that  natural 
forces  back  of  us  have  pushed  silver  aside  from  its 
ancient  place  and  thrust  it  down  in  value.    That  other 


160  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

forces  as  natural  and  inevitable  have  thrust  down  the 
prices  of  commodities  where  they  have  gone  down,  and 
that  demonetization  has  not  done  it.  They  have  em- 
ployed Pompous  University  Ignorance,  serfs  of  foreign 
aristocracy  and  royalty  and  ignorant  ward  politicians, 
coached  and  cyclopedia-stuffed  late  in  life  for  the  occasion, 
who  loftily  and  condescendingly  mention  the  importance 
of  teaching  "a  large  number  of  our  people,  with  scant 
opportunity,  thus  far,  to  examine  the  question  in  all  its 
aspects."  We  charge,  on  the  contrary,  that  they  have 
nothing  but  the  plundering  of  debtors  and  producers  as 
their  end;  and  that  their  means  have  been  falsehood, 
fraud  and  conspiracy  with  the  enemies  of  a  republican  form 
of  government  and  of  this  republic  in  especial. 

It  is  a  repetition  of  the  plundering  of  the  outside' 
provinces  by  Rome  through  proconsuls,  differing  only  in 
that  we  are  in  the  Age  of  Fraud,  -and  they  were  in  the  Age 
of  Force.  Rothschild  is  the  Imperator,  England  the  pro- 
consul and  the  two  Americas  are  the  provinces  that  are 
robbed. 

Proof  more  nearly  absolute  of  their  thorough  dishonesty 
could  not  be  asked  than  that  whilst  holding  that  the  going 
apart  of  the  value  of  gold  and  the  value  of  the  products 
that  must  pay  the  debts  contracted  under  the  old  system 
but  made  payable  afterwards  in  the  new  and  comparatively 
dearer  medium,  is  natural  and  not  under  man's  control, 
they  never  hint  at  the  equity  of  a  scaling  down  of  those 
debts  that  have  increased  in  value,  that  have  been  made 
more  burdensome.  The  reason  they  do  not  is  that  it 
would  defeat  one  of  the  main  purposes  of  demonetization, 
which  was  to  make  debtors  pay  more  than  the  contracts 
call  for. 

When  part  of  New  Madrid  county  sank  by  an  earth- 
quake in  1811  there  was  equity  in  the  action  of  the  whole 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  161 

people  giving  those  particular  sufferers  from  the  natural 
misfortune  certificates  by  which  they  could  get  other  lands 
from  the  public  domain.  When  a  convulsion  destroyed 
slavery  there  would  have  been  equity  in  paying  slave- 
holders something;  not  for  their  property,  for  there  can  be 
no  property  rights  in  human  beings,  but  because  the  blame 
for  slavery  was  as  much  the  North's  as  the  Soutli's,  and 
climate  mainly  kept  the  North  from  being  as  deeply 
involved. 

A  newspaper  in  this  state  gave  Mr.  Bland  as  saying  that 
bimetallism  is  not  a  debatable  question,  but  the  ratio  is. 
But  the  ratio  is  not.  There  is  but  one  true  and  natural 
ratio;  i  to  15 J,  as  our  experience  and  that  of  France  taken 
together  show. 

Perhaps  Switzerland  or  Montenegro  alone  could  not 
maintain  gold  and  silver  at  the  ratio  of  i  to  15 J,  nor  could 
they  against  Europe  and  America  maintain  any  other 
natural  rights  of  man.  But  with  our  territory  and  popu- 
lation we  could  maintain  this  as  easily  as  we  can  maintain 
any  other  of  the  natural  rights  of  man.  The  monarchies 
are  trying  to  overthrow  the  world's  great  republic  by  this 
subtlety,  so  as  to  stop  the  progress  of  republicanism  in  the 
world  (now  seriously  menacing  most  of  them)  by  pointing 
to  our  failure.  For  they  know  that  to  overthrow  us  by  the 
sword  is  impossible.  France  could  probably  have  main- 
ained  the  free  coinage  of  both  metals  in  the  face  of  all  the 
world  had  she  boldly  retired  all  paper.  We  have  twenty 
times  as  much  undeveloped  territory,  and  the  demand  for 
both  metals  at  i  to  15J  is  practically  unlimited. 

Many  of  the  enemies  of  the  constitution  and  others  who 
are  only  their  ignorant  followers  say  they  "want  a  silver 
dollar  to  be  worth  a  dollar."  But  the  one  just  and  simple 
way  to  let  every  41 2 J  grains  of  standard  silver  in  the  world 


162  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

show  that  it  is  worth  a  dollar — taking  off  usurpation's 
pressure — is  the  way  that  they  do  not  want  tried. 

Trenholm  asks  and  answers  thus: 

''What  quality  must  money  possess  in  order  to  con- 
form to  natural  law,  to  serve  the  needs  of  industry,  to  com- 
mand the  confidence  by  which  alone  it  can  fulfil  its  func- 
tions as  a  medium  of  exchange  and  a  measure  of  value,  and 
hence  to  merit  the  sanction  of  civil  law? 

"The  answer  is,  the  qualities  essentially  requisite  for 
money  are,  definiteness  and  stability  of  value." 

These  it  can  never  have  if 'Lord  Liverpool's  opinion 
backing  Rothschild's  trick,  or  Wells'  ''thoughtful  minds" 
in  Europe  evolving  a  new  system,  can  make  fiat  tamper 
with  the  natural  medium  of  exchange.  Our  fathers  spoke 
of  constitutional  money  because  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States  was  intended  to  be  in  harmony  with  the 
constitution  of  things.  Money  cannot  have  stability  of 
value  if  it  has  its  value  by  the  grace  of  fiat. 

One  of  the  ancient  ratios  between  silver  and  gold,  that  of 
lo  to  I,  is  said  to  have  had  no  economic  basis,  but  to  have 
been  based  on  the  idea  that  the  sun  is  ten  times  as  large  as 
the  moon,  and  to  have  been  settled  on  at  a  time  when  the 
orbs  were  objects  of  man's  worship,  and  there  was  a  sup- 
posed connection — the  sun  and  gold,  and  between  the 
moon  and  silver.  Some  of  the  other  ratios  of  ancient 
times  were  fiat-made  ratios,  and  in  case  of  none  of  them 
,are  we  able  to  tell  definitely  why  they  were  chosen  or 
,whether  they  were  based  on  fact  or  superstition.  It  is 
only  when  we  get  down  to  modem  times,  even  to  our 
:Own  times,  that  we  can  tell  much  about  the  ratios.  And  I 
have  given  herein  the  probable  reason  why  we  jumped 
:from  the  ratio  of  15  to  i,  which  was  wrong  on  one  side, 
to  16  to  I,  which  was  wrong  on  the  other.  The  men  who 
j:aused  the  change  did  not  want  the  right  ratio. 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  163 


CHAPTER  VI 
PAPER  CURRENCY. 

Here  properly  follows  the  consideration  of  paper  cur- 
rency. That  in  the  form  of  bank  bills  is  to  the  nation  what 
a  tapeworm  or  a  cancer  is  to  the  individual. 

(a)  It  being  settled  that  gold  and  silver  alone  are  money 
and  alone  have  the  right  to  fill  the  office  -of  medium  of 
exchange,  it  is,  upon  the  broadest  general  principles,  un- 
just for  governments  to  foster  or  allow  corporations  for 
putting  out  substitutes  for  them.  Examinations  into 
details  will  show  that  it  works  injustice  in  particular  cases. 
Let  us  learn  the  nature  of  currency  issued  by  banks  and  by 
governments. 

Trenholm  says: 

"The  question.  What  is  money?  may  seem  as  puzzling  as 
Pilate's  famous  question,  'What  is  truth?'  but  the  puzzle 
in  both  cases  is  about  words  not  things.  Invert  the  ques- 
tions and  apply  them  to  some  actual  case.  Is  a  certain 
thing  true?  Is  a  certain  thing  money?  Straightway  the 
puzzle  vanishes  and  we  know  how  to  seek  out  answers. 
Truth  is  established  by  evidence;  money  is  recognized  by 
its  ability  to  perform  certain  functions.  Will  it  buy 
things,  or  hire  persons  or  property,  or  pay  debts?  If  it 
will  do  all  these  things  exactly  as  they  are  done  by  what  is 
undoubtedly  money,  then  the  coin  or  note  in  question  IS 
money.  The  community  may  not  be  wise  in  accepting 
certain  things  as  money  and  becoming  dependent  upon 
them,  but  that  is  a  very  different  matter  '^ 


164  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

But  it  is  not  the  note  that  buys.  It  is  what  is  back  of 
it.  It  is  that  which  the  note  represents  that  buys.  Notes 
representing  the  pubhc  credit  prove,  according  to  him, 
that  all  exchangeable  things  are  money.  The  two  ex- 
tremes of  fiatism  meet  in  this  as  in  other  points.  His  is 
good  Greenback  doctrine. 

In  a  debate  in  the  Senate  in  December,  1857,  Senator 
Jefferson  Davis  of  Mississippi  said: 

,  '*I  hold  this  broad  distinction  between  government 
banking  and  banking  by  individuals;  every  individual 
within  a  State  but  for  statutory  provision,  might  issue  his 
promissory  note;  or  any  two  individuals  associated 
together  as  a  firm,  might  issue  their  promissory  note,  and 
those  notes  might  circulate  with  everybody  who  would 
receive  them.  They  might  have  them  engraved  and 
assume  the  form  of  bank  notes.  The  only  objection  or 
difficulty  to  this  is  constituted  by  the  statutory  provisions 
against  individuals  issuing  such  promissory  notes.  All 
that  exists  in  a  bank  charter  is  merely  relieving  the  indi- 
vidual or  corporation  from  that  statutory  prohibition ;  and 
hence  it  is  not,  as  so  often  asserted,  a  State  issuing  bills  of 
credit,  or  authorizing  another  to  do  that  which  it  cannot 
perform  itself.  It  is  merely  permitting  an  individual  or 
corporation  to  use  that  credit  which  he  or  it  may  enjoy 
among  the  community  where  he  lives." 

In  a  pamphlet  written  in  1879 — "How  to  Abolish  the 
National  Bank  System" — I  quoted  that  and  added: 

"Along  with  the  natural  right  of  each  man  to  the  un- 
limited use  of  his  credit,  alone  or  in  company  with  others, 
goes  a  natural  responsibility,  that  is  also  unlimited.  State 
laws,  in  creating  banks,  revived  the  natural  right  but  not 
the  natural  responsibility.  They  chartered  banks  with 
an  unlimited  ability  to  borrow,  and  limited  their  liability 
to  pay,  to  the  amoimt  of  stock.     In  Scotland,  where  the 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY  165 

greatest  freedom  in  issuing  bills  exists,  there  is  a  corre- 
sponding liberty  in  the  billholders  to  hold  all  of  the  stock- 
holders to  an  unlimited  liability.* 

It  is  true  of  finance  as  it  is  in  physics  that  something 
cannot  be  made  of  nothing.  The  issue  banks  of  Missouri 
before  1861  were  famed  for  the  goodness  of  their  paper. 
In  1862-3-4-5,  or  thereabout,  one  could  get  $2  in  green- 
backs for  $1  in  the  paper  of  the  St.  Louis  State  issue  banks. 
They  redeemed  their  currency  in  coin.  Those  who  call 
the  present  system  "the  best  we  have  ever  had"  forget 
that  Missouri  State  banks  thought  it  dishonest  to  buy 
greenbacks  or  national  bank  notes  at  50  cents  on  the  dol- 
lar as  they  then  could,  and  redeem  their  own  notes  in 
them.f 

*Davis  generally  saw  clearly  and  was  never  muddled  in  his 
ideas  nor  would  he  be  swerved  by  demagogue's  motives,  in  the 
debates  in  Congress  in  1857  over  the  issue  of  treasury  notes, 
as  the  debates  show  so  many  others  to  have  been.  He  insisted 
that  the  notes  be  made  to  pass  only  by  successive  endorsement 
of  each  holder.  It  was  urged  that  government  officers  might 
take  forged  endorsements  by  mistake.  He  answered  that  such 
cases  could  be  met  as  they  came  up  and  said,  "I  prefer  to  en- 
counter that  hazard  rather  than  make  this  government  the  is- 
suer of  a  paper  currency.  I  believe  there  is  money  enough  in 
the  country — and  when  I  say  money  I  mean  gold  and  silver — to 
answer  all  the  wants  of  commerce." 

tKenutcky  retired  hers  at  a  premium  over  greenbacks,  Indi- 
ana and  Iowa  state  bank  paper  was  good.  New  York,  New  Eng- 
land, Louisiana  good  and  only  a  few  states  and  territories 
whose  bills  were  worth  anything  but  were  worth  more  than 
greenbacks.  Compare  the  losses  by  the  use  of  greenbacks  as 
herein  quoted  from  Henry  Clay  Dean  (adding  thereto  the  in- 
terest on  bonds  and  on  the  redemption  fund  through  all  these 
years)  with  what  Gouge  gives  as  the  loss  from  state  banks  and 
estimate  or  take  any  estimate  of  the  losses  afterwards  Jto  1861 
and  it  is  in  favor  of  state  banks  as  against  treasury  notes  and 
national  notes.  Some  state  banks  could  keep  their  paper  at  par 
when  the  government  could  not  do  the  same  with  its  own.  The 
paper  fiatists  ask  us  to  take  their  word  for  it  that  greenbacks 
would  never  have  differed  in  value  from  coin  had  not  the  U.  S. 
refused  to  take  them  for  duties  on  imports.  It  is  impossible 
to  tell  tbat  this  would  have  been  or  woul(i  not  bave  been  XU^ 


166  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

Yet  those  Missouri  State  banks  issued  $3  for  every 
$1  of  paid-up  coin  capital.  This  has  confused  a  great 
many  and  made  them  think  that  fiat  or  legislation  can 
create  value.  But  examination  will  show  that  it  was  only 
a  taking  of  property  by  an  unjust  law  from  those  to  whom 
it  belonged  and  giving  it  to  those  who.  had  no  right  to 
it.  In  one  case  there  was  a  bank  in  a  town  which  had 
two  branches  in  two  other  towns.  The  capital  of  the  three 
was  one  million  dollars,  honestly  paid-up  in  coin.  On  the 
day  they  opened  for  business  it  was  on  hand,  and  there 
was  also  on  hand  three  million  dollars  in  notes.  One 
easily  sees  that  one  million  dollars  of  the  paper  when  put 
in  circulation  by  loans  was  good,  for  there  was  coin  to 
redeem  it;  but  the  other  two  millions  were  not  worth 
anything,  for  there  was  nothing  to  redeem  them  with, 
and  the  liability  of  the  stockholders  was  limited  to  what 
they  had  paid  in :  they  could  not  be  assessed  for  any  more 
in  any  event  whatever. 

When  the  borrowers  got  the  first  million  in  notes  they 
got  value  from  the  bank  and  justly  paid  interest  on  it. 
When  they  got  the  other  two  millions  whence  came  the 
value  in  them? 

It  is  easily  seen.  A  man  with  a  farm  worth  $20,000, 
including  or  excluding  his  personal  property  on  it,  would 
borrow  $10,000  of  the  worthless  two  millions  of  bank 
notes,  and  give  his  own  good  and  solvent  note  for  $10,- 
000  secured  by  mortgage  or  otherwise.  Then  the  $10,000 
of  worthless  bank  notes  were  good,  for  they  were  tied  to 
a  property  worth  still  more  than  themselves.  The  bor- 
rower made  the  notes  good  that  he  borrowed  and  paid 
interest  on.     No  wonder  that  old  men  dying  looked  back 

case;  but  there  is  no  reason  to  believe  that  the  doubt  as  to  the 
issue  of  trial  by  battle  would  have  had  no  effect;  and  still  less 
reason  to  believe  that  people  would  take  non-interest  bearing 
promissory  notes  at  par  on  which  the  promisor  was  in  default. 


1?llE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  167 

at  the  happy  days  when  they  held  stock  in  such  banks  and 
praised  the  plan. 

The  circulation  of  those  banks  was  purposely  driven 
from  the  field  under  the  pretense  of  taxation.  Some  re- 
sisted, but  the  case  of  Veazie  Bank  against  Fenno  made 
them  all  surrender.  In  that  case  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States  held  in  substance  that  Congress  had  power 
to  charter  the  banks  to  furnish  currency  with  which  to 
carry  on  the  war  then  going  on  and  could  get  the  other 
banks  out  of  their  way.* 

The  immorality  of  bankers  collecting  interest  from  men 
who  themselves  give  the  principal  its  value  is  plain  to  all. 
But  is  the  matter  changed  under  the  national  system? 
Take  the  case  of  ten  men  who  put  in  $10,000  each  and  start 
a  national  bank  with  $90,000  circulation.  It  is  to  run 
twenty  years.  What  is  the  understanding?  It  is  that  at 
the  end  of  twenty  years  each  will  get  back  his  $10,000,  and 
in  the  meantime  will  get  interest  in  the  guise  of  dividends 
of  about  so  and  so  much,  as  usually  earned.  The  whole 
$100,000  is  invested  in  United  States  bonds,  which  are 
deposited  with  the  Treasury  at  Washington  (and  stored 
and  insured  free  of  the  considerable  charge  that  a  safe 
deposit  company  would  make  for  the  same  service)  as 
security  for  the  payment,  on  demand,  of  the  $90,000  in 
notes  that  the  bank  gets  from  Washington.  What  makes 
these  notes  good?  It  is  generally  said  "the  bonds."  But 
the  bonds  belong  to  the  stockholders  for  what  they  paid 
in,  for  we  saw  that  they  only  go  into  the  enterprise  on  the 
understanding  that  they  will  get  interest  or  dividends  and 
get  back  their  principal.     If  they  did  not  feel  sure  of  this 

*Few  know  that  we  are  keeping  up  the  national  system  for 
the  purpose  of  furnishing  the  federal  government  with  the 
currency  necessary  to  carry  on  the  war  against  secession  that 
ended  thirty  odd  years  ago. 


168  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

they  would  not  become  stockholders.  It  is  true  that  if  they 
choose  directors  and  officers  who  mismanage  the  bank 
and  lose  the  capital  they  must  let  the  bonds  go  to  pay 
the  circulating  notes.  But  the  bank  is  started  on  the 
theory  of  general  success,  not  of  general  failure.  And 
practically  it  works  out  that  way.  When  it  does  not  it  is 
the  stockholders'  own  fault  so  they  are  estopped  from 
complaining.  So  the  series  is!  this:  The  government 
makes  the  notes  good  by  its  endorsement.  The  bonds 
guarantee  the  government  against  loss,  and  the  men  who 
borrow  the  notes  put  up  good  securities  when  they  borrow 
the  notes  and  thus  insure  the  stockholders.  Thus  they  do 
just  what  the  borrowers  did  under  the  State  issue-bank 
system:  they  give  the  value  to  the  notes  that  they  borrow 
and  pay  interest  on.  The  security  that  they  put  up  guar- 
antees the  stockholders  that  the  original  contract  and 
understanding  under  which  they  became  stockholders — 
that  they  will  get  back  what  they  put  in — will  be  carried 
out.  It  is  true  that  the  stockholders  are  under  double 
liability  and  may,  if  their  directors  and  officers  lose  the 
whole  capital,  be  made  to  pay  it  all  in  over  again  so  as  to 
save  depositors  from  loss.  But  that  is  only  a  guarantee 
against  their  own  failure  to  choose  proper  directors  and 
officers;  to  do  their  duty  to  themselves.  It  only  means 
that  if  they  neglect  it  and  loss  follow  it  shall  be  their  own 
loss  and  they  cannot  put  it  ofT  on  the  depositors.  If  we 
work  the  problem  on  the  plan  of  "cancellation"  in  arith- 
metic and  cancel  the  factors  between  the  owners  of  the 
bank  and  the  borrowers  of  the  bank's  notes  we  see  that  the 
case  is  the  same  as  in  the  old  State  issue-banks  of  the 
kind  herein  described.  The  government  cannot  lose,  the 
note-holder  cannot  lose  and  the  stockholders  cannot  lose 
but  by  their  own  fault.  The  government  is  secured  by  the 
deposit  of  bonds,  the  note-holder  is  secured  by  the  govern- 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHV.  16d 

ment  and  the  stockholder  is  secured  by  the  property 
pledged  as  security  by  the  borrower.  The  borrower  is  at 
the  bottom.  The  security  is  furnished  by  him  and  the 
profit  comes  out  of  him.  He  makes  the  whole  concern, 
stock,  notes  and  all,  good;  and  he  pays  interest  on  the 
notes  that  he  makes  good.  It  is  in  essence  only  the  old 
system.  The  chief  difference  is  that  note-holders  are 
secured.  And  we  have  seen  that  note-holders  could  be 
made  safe  and  were  made  so  under  the  state  system  in 
some  cases  and  could  have  been  in  all. 

But  the  wrong  done  to  the  borrower  under  the  national 
system  is  three-fold,  whereas  under  the  old  state  system 
it  was  only  two-fold.  Under  the  state  system  the  natural 
right  of  the  borrower  to  have  a  chance  to  get  the 
natural  medium  of  exchange  whose  production  makes 
business  for  all,  was  interfered  with.  It  was  artificially 
made  less  valuable  by  a  paper  substitute,  and  the  business 
growing  out  of  its  production  was  destroyed  or  lessened ; 
and  other  men  were  let  to  "monetize"  the  credit  or  prop- 
erty of  borrowers  and  charge  them  interest  for  the  use 
of  what  was  already  their  own.  The  national  bank  notes 
interfere  with  the  natural  right  of  owners  of  coin  and  of 
all  who  would  do  business  with  it;  and  secondly  they  are 
the  property  of  borrowers  monetized  and  lent  back  to  them 
as  in  the  case  of  the  old  state  banks  of  issue ;  and  thirdly, 
the  banks  get  the  use  of  the  public  credit  gratis.  The 
bonds  draw  as  much  interest  as  the  investment  is  entitled 
to,  and  the  notes  draw  interest  over  again  on  the  same 
investment. 

When  Webster  said  of  the  old  state  banks  of  issue  that 
they  were  systems  by:  which  the  rich  man's  field  was  fertil- 
ized by  the  sweat  of  the  poor  man's  face,  he  did  not  think 
that  the  day  would  come  when  we  would  have  a  great 
national  "sweating  system"  such  as  the  national  banking 


17d  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY*. 

system  is.  Both  the  state  and  national  banking  systems 
are  forms  of  theft.  Their  essence  is  the  same  as  that  of  any 
other  system  of  slavery.  The  borrower  paying  interest 
for  the  use  of  his  own  property  monetized  through  the 
jugglery  of  banking  legislation  is  in  exactly  the  same 
position  of  the  slaves  who  up  to  thirty  odd  years  ago  were 
sometimes  allowed  to  "hire  their  time,"  i.  e.,  pay  for  the 
use  of  themselves.  The  old  system  of  slavery  and  the  one 
under  consideration  are  closely  alike  on  many  points. 

What  would  be  the  condition  of  the  business  man,  mer- 
chant or  farmer  who  borrows  the  notes  if  there  were  no 
notes?  He  would  by  his  demand  for  the  metal  put  men 
at  work  to  get  it,  and  he  would  furnish  them  machinery 
from  his  factory,  wares  from  his  store,  food  from  his  farm, 
in  return.  In  that  way  the  mines  of  gold  and  silver  give 
work  to  coal  miners,  merchants,  farmers.  But  when  a 
banker  sits  down  to  a  table  and  makes  millions  of  paper 
currency  he  proves  that  in  other  cases  than  *'in  the  hands 
of  one  truly  great,  the  pen  is  mightier  than  the  sword"; 
for  he  with  it  knocks  the  pick  and  shovel  out  of  the  hands 
of  millions  of  stalwart  miners,  shuts  out  millions  of  factory 
hands  and  sends  them  tramping  to  beg  food  from  the 
farmer,  and  the  merchant  goes  into  the  hands  of  an 
assignee.  With  the  sword  they  could  never  do  it. 
Subtlety  did  what  force  never  could. 

Paper  always  drives  coin  out  of  circulation,  and  when 
the  channels  are  filled  with  paper  the  issuers  of  it  have 
the  business  of  the  country  at  their  mercy,  and  it  is  not 
like  man  to  have  power  and  not  use  it  for  his  own  benefit. 
Under  the  name  of  "elasticity,"  which  the  issue-bankers 
say  is  necessary  to  the  circulation,  they  would  exercise  a 
power  more  tyrannical  than  that  of  any  potentate  on  earth, 
and  not  for  amusement  but  for  their  own  gain.  Ninety- 
nine  per  cent  of  the  business  firms  in  towns  and  cities 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  171 

where  there  are  banks  do  business  with  banks.  Not  less 
less  than  90  per  cent  borrow  from  time  to  time.  They 
are  thus  dependent  upon  banks  to  a  greater  or  less  extent. 
The  whole  cause,  origin  and  purpose  of  the  demonetiza- 
tion of  silver  is  a  desire  to  reduce  the  circulating  medium 
to  gold  alone  because  the  latter  will  come  far  short  of  sup- 
plying the  needs,  and  to  add  to  it  a  volume  of  paper 
absolutely  in  control  of  banks  closely  associated  in  one 
system,  and  thus  levy  tribute  at  wilV  upon  the  entire 
business  of  the  country  by  making  the  volume  greater  or 
less  from  time  to  time  under  the  "elasticity"  trick.  The 
case  needs  only  to  be  stated  to  make  every  one  see  that  it 
puts  the  issue-bankers  in  the  position  of  the  old  robber- 
knights  in  the  castles  on  the  Rhine,  levying  tribute  at  will 
on  the  whole  industry  of  the  country.  They  have  very 
slyly  concealed  that  the  real  purpose  is  to  get  all  metal 
money  out  of  the  way  and  have  nothing  but  paper  as 
elastic  as  their  own  consciences.  They  have  blinded  the 
eyes  of  the  people  by  fighting  behind  a  gilded  shield  until 
many  have  personified  gold  and  actually  come  to  hate 
that  useful  metal. 

Governor  Tillman  said  in  the  Second  National  Silver 
Convention  in  St.  Louis,  "gold  is  a  robber."  Greenback- 
ers  never  tire  of  telling  how  it  "slunk  away  like  a  coward" 
when  the  war  came  on.  They  do  not  even  take  the  trouble 
to  see  that  gold  was  taxed  and  paper  was  not.  Just  as 
well  quarrel  with  water  because  it  will  not  run  up  hill  but 
only  down. 

Lincoln  benefited  the  Southern  whites  more  than  he  did 
the  blacks.  The  exercise  of  tyranny  injures  the  doers 
more  than  the  sufferers  of  it.  We  who  are  preparing  to 
sweep  away  from  America  forever  this  deeply-rooted  sys- 
tem of  slavery — the  issue  of  paper  currency — are  doing 
it  with  a  view  to  the  benefit  of  the  tyrant  bankers  quite  as 
much  as  of  those  over  whom  they  tyrannize. 


172  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

Any  addition  to  the  circulating  medium  other  than  by 
the  industry  of  man  and  the  generosity  of  nature  in  in- 
creasing it,  afifects  prices  and  changes  the  relations  of 
parties  to  contracts  for  the  payment  of  money.  It  thus 
deprives  some  of  what  is  theirs  by  making  them  give 
more  and  others  by  making  them  take  less. 

National  bankers  write  to  me  and  say  in  all  gravity, 
"You  can  become  a  national  banker  and  issue  notes  if 
you  want  to.  It  is  no  monopoly."  Suppose  they  tell  this 
to  the  laborers,  the  silver-miners,  from  whose  hands  they 
have  struck  the  pick  and  shovel;  the  men  whose  ancient 
and  inalienable  right  they  have  lawlessly  taken  away 
and  have  forced  into  other  mines  or  avenues  of  labor, 
thus  overcrowding  them  and  putting  down  wages.  These 
laborers  can  truthfully  say  to  them,  "We  cannot  issue 
paper  currency,  but  you  can  be  producers  of  gold  and 
silver." 

The  proposition  is  made  to  let  national  banks  issue 
notes  based  on  other  resources  and  securities  besides  and 
in  addition  to  their  bond-based  notes.  The  Bank  of 
England  has  already  gone  into  this  sort  of  card-castle 
building. 

What  was  it  that  put  the  Bank  of  England  into  the 
desperate  tremors  and  forced  the  "old  lady  of  Thread- 
needle  Street"  down  on  her  knees  to  the  Bank  of  France 
for  the  loan  of  a  paltry  fifteen  millions  to  save  England 
from  ruin  when  the  Barings  failed?  It  was  the  fact  that 
the  part  of  the  bank's  issue  based  on  "securities"  is  mone- 
tized debt;  the  debts  increased  in  value  by  fiat  are  like 
former  property  in  negro  slaves  and  plantations  in  coun- 
tries where  the  land  was  only  tillable  by  slave  labor.  The 
economic  leaders  of  England  knew  that  if  once  the  sandy 
foundation  of  this  part  of  their  structure  were  uncovered 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  173 

by  a  panic,  suspension  and  depreciation  of  the  market 
values  of  these  insecure  "securities,"  based  on  forms  of 
slavery  would  follow,  and  would  be  the  doom  of  England's 
slavery-based  economic  power. 

One  of  the  reasons  given  for  those  who  want  to  get 
something  for  nothing  by  issuing  bank  notes,  and  for  their 
various  "Baltimore"  and  other  "plans"  for  emergency 
currency,  is  the  claim  that  the  currency  needs  "elasticity." 

To  those  who  think  elasticity  a  necessary  feature  of 
currency  it  is  well  to  say  that  there  is  three  times  as 
much  bullion  uncoined  as  coined,  certainly  a  fair  fund  of 
elasticity.  In  fact,  hard  money  is  the  only  currency  that 
is  both  elastic  and  safe.  Give  men  their  natural  rights 
at  the  mints  and  there  will  be  no  lack  of  "elasticity"  in  the 
currency.  The  elasticity  of  bank  currency  is  both  a 
menace  and  a  weapon  of  tyranny. 

The  business  of  banking  and  keeping  livery  stable  are 
almost  exactly  the  same  in  nature,  the  chief  difference 
being  that  one  deals  with  money,  the  other  with  horses. 
Wnen  by  any  means  banks  are  allowed  to  control  the 
money  volume  and  issue  substitutes  for  it,  increase  and 
diminish  the  volume  at  will,  it  is  making  piracy  safe  and 
respectable.  "Elasticity"  in  currency  is  the  right  to  set 
a  trap  and  spring  it  when  the  rest  of  the  community  has 
been  enticed  into  it  by  need  or  the  banker's  bait  of  abund- 
ant issues  of  bank-notes. 

If  liverymen  could  get  all  means  of  draft  and  locomotion 
done  away  with,  except  walking  or  horse  power,  and 
secure  a  monopoly  of  that  power,  they  would  have  what  in 
one  respect  bankers  are  trying  to  get  in  respect  to  every- 
thing. Liverymen  would  then  be  the  feudal  lords  instead 
of  the  present  lords — bankers.  Gold-basis  fiatism  is  a 
"soft-money"  scheme. 

To  take  from  silver  its  office  and  put  the  nation  in  debt 


174  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

in  order  to  have  a  paper  currency  is  an  oppression  of  the 
same  sort  as  to  forbid  the  use  of  our  own  cotton  for 
clothing  and  buy  woollen  and  linen  from  abroad  and  issue 
bonds  to  pay  for  them;  thus  robbing  the  cotton-growers 
twice — when  the  profit  on  cotton-growing  is  taken  from 
them,  and  again  when  taxes  are  taken  from  them  to  pay 
for  the  substitute.  But  in  robbing  the  silver  miners  of 
their  natural  right  and  the  value  of  their  property  every 
one  else  is  robbed  who  produces.  Theft  is  nothing  but 
theft,  no  matter  how  disguised,  and  no  matter  how 
respectable  the  thieves. 

The  original  form  of  human  society  is  that  in  which 
there  are  no  separate  callings,  but  each  man  is  warrior, 
hunter,  weapon-maker,  etc.,  for  himself.  Progress  comes 
by  differencing,  by  variation:  along  these  lines  evolution 
works.  Every  blow  at  any  calling  in  any  nation  is  a  blow 
to  progress  and  civilization.  To  destroy  or  cripple  the 
silver  miners'  business  by  taking  away  the  natural  right  to 
use  silver  as  the  principal  of  the  two  metals  that  make  up 
the  natural  medium  of  exchange  is  a  blow  at  the  evolution 
of  a  higher  state  of  society,  a  crime  against  civilization. 

Secretary  Morton  believes  in  paternalism  for  political 
banks,  and  step-paternalism  (according  to  the  popular 
idea)  for  producers.  The  federal  government  does  not 
guarantee,  nor  is  it  its  place  to  guarantee,  that  the  money 
that  it  coins  for  individuals  will  keep  at  any  particular  pur- 
chasing power.  This  is  a  kind  of  regulating  of  value  that 
it  cannot  do  and  does  not  attempt. 

It  would  be  hard  to  find  a  worse  case  of  paternalism  than 
that  of  the  President  and  nearly  all  his  cabinet  writing 
letters  or  lecturing  to  the  people,  trying  to  "educate"  them 
in  finance,  even  if  those  public  servants  knew  the  principles 
of  the  science  of  money. 

This  question  is  exceedingly  simple  and  understand- 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  175 

able.  The  rights  and  relations  of  seventy  millions  are 
just  the  same  as  if  we  were  only  seventy  persons,  so  far 
as  this  question  is  concerned.  Suppose  then  we  are 
fourteen  families  of  five  persons  each,  instead  of  seventy 
millions,  and  that  we  were  living  up  to  this  law:  "Thou 
shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself."  That  law  is  a  com- 
plete rule  of  human  intercourse ;  a  perfect  system  of  gov- 
ernment; a  flawless  science  of  economics. 

Well;  there  arises  the  same  division  of  labor  as  now,  and 
the  same  fondness  for  gold  and  silver  as  among  the  seventy 
millions,  the  same  need  of  money — "that  for  which 
everything  is  readily  given  in  exchange" — and  as  gold  will 
not  pay  for  great  and  small,  the  two  metals  are  used. 
Then  a  conspiracy  is  formed  against  the  men  who  mine 
one  of  the  metals;  the  use  of  one  of  the  metals  as  money 
is  forbidden,  and  the  proposition  of  the  one  family  of 
money-lenders  in  the  fourteen  is:  "Let  us  all  sign  our 
names  to  a  lot  of  notes  and  secure  them  by  a  first  mort- 
gage on  all  the  property  we  own ;  our  family  will  borrow 
notes  at  one  per  cent  yearly  interest,  and  when  the  metal 
money  is  out  of  the  way  lend  these  notes  back  to  the  rest 
of  you  for  use  as  money  at  an  average  of  ten  per  cent  a 
year."  What  will  the  metal-mining  family  do?  "Go  into 
other  vocations."  But  they  are  full;  and  if  they  were  not 
they  do  not  want  to. 

Everbody  else  in  legitimate  business  in  the  country 
except  national  bankers  could  say:  "I  am  in  a  business 
that  will  command  money  if  you  will  keep  paper  out  of  the 
way:  why  should  I  sign  a  note  to  create  a  fiat  currency?" 

It  is  a  curious  coincidence  that  obedience  to  that 
"second  great  commandment"  of  Jesus  requires  us  to 
leave  men  to  their  natural  liberty  in  using  the  two  money 
metals  without  limit,  and  that  the  conspiracy  to  do  away 
with  them  and  to  plunder  mankind  with  paper  currency 


176  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

and  ultimately  destroy  Aryan  civilization  originated  with 
a  money-lending  firm  of  Jews. 

Another  error  strongly  fastened  in  the  average  mind  and 
carefully  fostered  by  issue  bankers  is  that  ''paper  currency 
is  a  necessity  of  modern  business/'  Paper  currency  per- 
forms no  useful  office  that  the  check  and  draft  will  not 
better  perform.  Paper  currency  is  absolutely  useless. 
The  only  reason  that  it  exists  is  for  a  purpose  forbidden 
by  the  eighth  commandment. 

If  any  banker  will  look  at  the  national  bank  notes  in 
his  safe  and  think  of  trying  to  get  the  gold  on  them  in  an 
emergency  he  must  conclude  that  he  would  much  better 
pay  ten  per  cent  premium  to  get  gold  than  to  try  to  get 
it  on  the  "gold-basis"  paper.  This  paper  will  certainly 
send  gold  to  a  premium  sooner  or  later.  It  is  a  carefully- 
arranged  plan  to  defeat  such  demand  and  redemption. 
Gold-basis  is  an  alleged  corner-stone  that  no  one  is  to  see 
and  all  are  to  suppose  in  place  and  holding  up  the  house, 
which  the  first  panic  will  shake  down. 

The  issue-bankers  did  not  want  to  go  back  into  a  federal 
system.  They  had  their  state  system  traps  in  working 
order,  and  did  not  care  to  change  again  to  one  large 
federal  trap.  Divided  among  the  states  they  could  never 
have  become  the  menace  to  our  liberties  that  they  have, 
as  we  were  told  by  Jackson.  Chase  had  in  early  life  been 
counsel  for  an  Ohio  branch  of  the  Bank  of  the  United 
States  and  to  his  folly  we  owe  the  wound  made  in  the 
body  of  our  rights  by  this  last  system.  He  is  said  to  have 
seen  his  mistake  when  it  was  too  late. 

Professor  Laughlin  of  the  Chicago  University,  one  of 
the  raiders  of  constitutional  coinage,  said  in  a  debate 
what  is  often  said  by  gold-fiatists : 

"Are  we  willing  to  sacrifice  the  interests  of  the  laboring 
class  to  the  demands  of  certain  owners  of  silver  mines 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  177 

who  are  trying  to  hoodwink  the  people  with  the  cry  of 
more  money?" 

This  is  silly  from  any  point  of  view,  dishonest  when 
used  by  any  person  who  knows  that  silver  is  got  out  of 
the  ground  by  labor  and  that  bank  notes  are  not.  Issue 
banks  act  on  England's  plan  of  keeping  up  a  domestic 
tyrant  in  India,  Egypt  or  elsewhere,  and  reigning  in  his 
name.  The  paper  is  England,  gold  the  puppet.  Sup- 
pose the  silver  mine-owners  give  their  mines  to  laborers, 
or  suppose  the  government  hold  all  mines  of  silver  and 
let  miners  work  them  on  shares — the  learned  professor 
would  lose  his  ground.  It  is  not  good  logic  that  silver 
be  demonetized  because  the  owners  of  it  are  rich.  He 
and  those  from  whom  he  copies  ought  to  be  able  to  tell 
us  that  all  owners  of  gold  mines  are  poor,  and  why  their 
metal  has  exclusive  right.  He  is  not  the  only  college 
professor  who  deals  in  demagoguery  in  this  matter.  The 
millionaires  swinging  picks  ought  not  to  be  allowed  to 
take  from  bank  presidents  and  cashiers  the  hard  and  ill- 
paid  labor  of  signing  their  names  to  notes. 

Trenholm  as  a  historian  says : 

"After  1834,  silver  dollars  could  no  longer  circulate,  and 
the  country  had  only  the  gold  standard  up  to  the  suspen- 
sion of  specie  payment  at  the  outbreak  of  the  civil  war 
— a  period  of  nearly  twenty-eight  years — during  which 
the  United  States  gained  more  in  industrial  development, 
commercial  extension,  population,  and  a  generally  dif- 
fused prosperity  of  the  people,  than  in  all  their  previous 
existence." 

One  must  look  to  other  historians  than  he  to  learn  that 
in  the  period  named  we  had  the  panic  of  1837  and  1857, 
two  of  the  worst  in  our  history  And  of  the  three  great 
natural  panics  of  1837,  1857  and  1873,  and  the  artificial 
one  of  1893,  madel^y  Cleveland  and  the  Bank  Ring,  each 


178  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

had  paper  currency  for  its  cause.  In  each  the  slaughter 
of  business  was  caused  by  paper  currency  makers  fig-ht- 
ing  for  the  ground  that  belongs  naturally  to  coin  alone. 

B. 
THE  GOVERNMENT  AS  AN  ISSUE  BANK 

The  difficulty  in  getting  rid  of  the  last  plan  has  been 
that  there  are  so  many  who  will  not,  as  Max  Muller  says 
we  should,  "be  content  with  our  horizons.'^  That  is,  they 
want  a  sort  of  fairy  money,  that  will  have  all  the  good 
qualities  of  gold  and  silver,  but  that  is  not  heavy.  They 
want  a  medium  of  exchange  that  will  cost  nothing  yet  will 
have  exchangeable  value.  They  labor  under  the  hallu- 
cination that  value  can  be  created.  Demonstration  is 
powerless  against  hallucination.  It  is  no  wonder  that  the 
Issue-Bank  party  (existing  in  and  controlling  both  old 
parties)  has  been  so  successful  in  fighting  a  just  and  scien- 
tific reform  of  our  national  finances.  For  practically  the 
question  has  been  presented  as  a  choice  between  the  paper 
of  Federal  banks  or  that  of  State  banks  or  else  making 
the  treasury  a  bank  of  issue  and  lending  the  public  credit 
on  lands  at  two  per  cent  a  year,  or  on  warehouse  receipts 
for  the  products  of  farms  and  plantations,  or  otherwise. 
It  is  proper  here  to  recall  that  the  fiatists  in  insisting  on 
the  definition  of  money  as  a  measure  do  not  notice  that 
when  we  set  its  whole  volume  against  that  of  the  other 
things  and  see  that  as  it  increases  in  value  by  decrease  in 
volume  (if  other  things  stay  about  as  before),  which  means 
that  other  things  decrease  in  value  (price)  as  money  de- 
creases— ^then  there  cannot  be  a  plainer  proposition  than 
that  its  volume  must  be  left  to  nature  and  man^s  industry 
exercised  freely,  and  that  the  proposition  that  any  set  of 
men  may  properly  be  allowed  to  supplement  it  with  paper 


THE  FINANQIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  179 

currency  in  volume  that  may  be  increased  and  decreased 
at  their  will,  is  monstrous. 

There  is  indeed  not  as  good  reason  naturally  why  the 
public  credit  should  be  lent  to  national  bankers  on  their 
bonds  at  a  nominal  interest  in  the  guise  of  an  annual  tax 
on  circulation,  for  them  to  lend  at  an  average  of  about  ten 
per  cent  to  borrowers  who  own  that  credit  as  much  as  the 
lenders  do,  as  that  it  should  be  lent  to  landholders  and 
producers  directly  instead  of  leaving  them  to  borrow  of 
the  banks  what  belongs  to  them  as  much  as  it  belongs  to 
the  banks  (and  even  more,  for  they  mainly  create  the 
public  credit.)  Indeed,  I  believe  it  is  I  who  first  and 
persistently  preaching  this  through  the  St.  Louis  Journal 
of  Agriculture,  some  twelve  or  more  years  ago,  planted 
the  seed  that  has  grown  into  the  doctrine  of  the  ''Omaha 
Platform"  of  the  People's  party.  Both  plans  are  unjust, 
both  are  infringements  of  man's  natural  rights  in  respect 
to  the  use  of  the  metals,  and  both  are  unconstitutional 
in  that  they  convert  the  public  credit,  which  is  public  prop- 
erty, to  the  private  use  and  iadvantage  of  a  class.  But 
if  we  had  to  choose  between  them  there  is  no  question 
that  national  banking  does  more  injustice  than  the  Omaha 
platform  doctrine  would.  As  one  of  the  latest  expressions 
of  their  doctrines  made  with  convenient  compactness  and 
by  a  high  authority  the  following  is  quoted  from  an  ex- 
congressman  of  the  Greenback  party,  now  a  Populist,  if 
I  mistake  not: 


180  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

FREE  COINAGE  OF  SILVER. 

Editor  Journal  of  Agriculture: 

In  all  nations  law  makes  money.  Government  legal 
tender  paper  money  is  best  for  all  purposes.  It  is  the  most 
convenient  and  safe  in  use,  and  may  be  increased  in  value 
equal  to  the  increase  of  population  and  business,  and 
will  then  cause  continuous  prosperity. 

Gold  and  silver  are  unfit  for  American  money;  first, 
because  of  the  cost  of  bullion,  which  adds  nothing  to  the 
value  of  money;  second,  because  of  the  constant  chang- 
ing of  the  commodity  value  of  the  metals;  third,  because 
of  the  expense  of  coinage  and  the  wear  of  coins;  fourth, 
because  of  the  impossibility  of  an  increase  of  the  volume 
of  gold  and  silver  equal  to  the  increase  of  population  and 
business;  fifth,  because  of  a  shrinkage  of  the  volume  of 
money  and  hard  times  in  this  country,  as  the  metals  are 
drawn  to  other  nations  in  consequence  of  foreign  wars 
or  other  financial  disturbances. 

The  most  prpsperous  period  of"  American  history  was 
at  the  close  of  the  war  of  the  rebellion,  when  there  was 
no  gold  or  silver  money  in  use,  but  a  large  volume  of 
government  paper  money  equal  to  $50  per  capita.  The 
free  coinage  of  silver  would  not  increase  the  volume  of 
money  sufficiently  to  afford  any  adequate  remedy  for  the 
present  hard  times. 

It  is  the  duty  of  the  law-making  power  to  supply  the 
people  with  a  sufficient  volume  of  government  legal  ten- 
der paper  money  to  cause  continuous  prosperity. 

*  *  *  Some  nations  idolize  kings  as  necessary  to 
good  government.  Such  idolatry  is  no  more  absurd  than 
that  shown  by  ignorant  people  in  this  country  for  both 
gold  and  silver  to  be  used  as  money.  How  absurd  to 
limit  the  growth  of  nations  in  any  degree  to  the  accidental 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  181 

discovery  of  certain  metals.  Such  ignorance  enables  a 
few  money  speculators  to  rob,  starve  and  enslave  all  the 
producers  of  wealth.  I  would  give  silver  bullion  all  the 
free  coinage  rights  of  gold  bullion.  I  would  sell  both  to 
semi-barbarous  nations.* 

3|C  3f»  5|*  5j€  5jC  ^  ^ 

IRA  S.  HASELTINE. 
Dorchester,  Mo.,  February  24,  1895. 

Trenholm  says: 

"In  the  payment  of  wages,  and  in  all  small  transactions, 
the  current  money  of  the  time  and  place  is  used  to  meas- 
ure values,  just  as  in  the  retail  trade  the  yard-stick  is  used 
to  measure  cloth,  pound  weights  to  measure  sugar,  or  pint 
cups  to  measure  molasses.  But  beyond  the  retail  trade 
goods  are  passed  from  hand  to  hand  among  wholesale 
dealers  by  the  package  or  bale,  the  barrel  or  hogshead, 
and  are  paid  for  by  checks  or  drafts." 

And  in  a  foot-note  he  adds,  "bonds  and  stocks  are  paid 
for  in  the  same  way."  That  is  a  lesson  by  one  set  of  fiat- 
ists  to  those  of  the  other  kind.  "Paid  for  by  checks  or 
drafts,"  but  the  checks  or  drafts  must  be  paid  for  by  some- 
thing else.  One  set  of  fiatists,  of  whom  Laughlin,  eco- 
nomic professor  of  Chicago  University,  is  a  sample,  says 
through  him: 

"There  is  no  more  essential  need  of  an  increased  amount 

♦Having  here  introduced  the  matter  in'  Mr.  Hazeltine's  letter 
it  is  proper  to  say  that  mankind  will  lose  the  same  by  the 
wear  of  gold  and  silver  if  they  use  it  at  all,  whether  for  coin 
or  otherwise.  The  only  way  to  escape  that  is  to  throw  it  all 
away.  The  cost  of  printing  notes  is  equal  to  the  loss  of  coin 
by  wear  in  the  long  run,  and  the  loss  by  over-issue  of  the  public 
credit,  and  by  the  use  of  it  for  private  purposes  would  eventu- 
ally equal  all  that  we  own  in  this  republic,  for  it  would  over- 
throw the  government.  Those  who  were  not  suited  would  have 
no  other  way  out. 


182  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

of  measure  with  which  to  compare  goods  than  there  is  or 
should  be  of  a  number  of  yard-sticks  equal  to  the  number 
of  yards  of  cloth  in  a  store.  The  absurdity  of  supposing 
that  such  money  is  required  in  order  to  have  something 
with  vvhich  to  measure  goods  is  as  absurd  as  to  sup- 
pose that  a  community  must  have  hearses  in  number 
equal  to  the  population.  One  or  two  well  regulated 
hearses  may  do  the  work  of  burying  all  the  community, 
because  they  may  not  inconveniently  die  at  the  same  time. 
So  with  gold.  All  goods  are  neither  exchanged  at  the 
same  time  nor  are  they  offered  in  comparison  with  the 
standard  at  the  same  time." 

There  is  a  charming  simplicity  about  this  declaration 
of  this  t.xotic  philosopher  in  the  liberty-loving  West.  His 
declaration  does  not  name  the  fact,  but  it  is  understood 
that  the  present  fiat  arrangement  suits  him  and  those  for 
whom  he  speaks,  and  he  sees  no  reason  for  changing  it. 
Taking  the  two  together,  checks  and  drafts  pay  large 
debts,  these  checks  balance  each  other  off,  nearly;  no 
more  money  is  needed.  Greenbackers  add:  So  little  is 
used  that  it  proves  that  none  is  needed;  ninety-five  per 
cent  of  the  transactions  balance  each  other  off;  we  can 
easily  make  the  other  five  per  cent  do  the  same  thing. 
Nobody's  fiat  has  any  rights  in  the  case  at  all,  however 
highly  any  may  esteem  his  own  wisdom  and  ability  to 
set  the  limit,  nor  could  it  ever  establish  itself. 

The  proposal  that  as  the  government  had  heretofore 
^'furnished"  the  circulating  medium  of  gold  and  silver  it 
should  "furnish"  the  paper  in  the  form  of  the  public  credit, 
is  a  fallacy  that  is  analyzed  in  my  "National  Banking 
Examined"  (1880).  The  buying  of  silver  and  coining  it 
is  an  incongruity  that  fiatism  invented  and  that  its  disciples 
(notably  Edward  Atkinson,  in  Forum,  April,  1895),  try 
to  shoulder  off  upon  others.    Leaving  it  out  of  the  ques- 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  183 

tion  we  see  that  if  credit  bills  be  allowed,  the  lesson  drawn 
from  the  constitutional  powers  of  Congress  would  be  that, 
as  the  United  States  attest  the  value  of  private  bullion 
before  it  can  circulate  as  money,  therefore  when  private 
credit  circulates  as  currency  the  United  States  ought  to 
attest  its  value.  So  the  constitution  gives  more  color  of 
constitutionality  to  some  form  of  Federal  issue-banking 
than  for  the  use  of  trade  than  it  does  to  making  the  gov- 
ernment a  bank  of  issue  for  the  use  of  trade. 

The  notes  that  they  ask  Congress  to  issue,  to  ''furnish" 
as  a  "duty,"  are  a  part  of  the  public  credit.  They  are  the 
notes  of  all  the  citizens  and  when  signed  by  the  treasurer 
of  the  United  States  and  the  register  of  the  treasury  and 
issued  constitutionally  they  are  the  same  as  if  issued  in 
one  large  note  and  signed  by  every  citizen  of  the  United 
States  in  person.  It  goes  without  saying  that  for  certain 
purposes  named  in  the  constitution  Congress  may,  by 
virtue  of  the  constitution  as  a  power  of  attorney,  "bor- 
row money  on  the  credit  of  the  United  States,"  and  as 
our  attorney  sign  the  name  of  every  citizen,  by  the  treas- 
urer and  register,  to  the  evidence  of  indebtedness  given. 
But  Congress  can  only  so  use  the  public  credit  in  certain 
specified  ways.  To  farm  it  out  to  national  bankers,  or  to 
land-owners,  or  to  holders  of  warehouse  receipts  for 
products,  that  they  may  use  it  as  currency  is  not  one  of 
those  ways.  Nor  could  the  privilege  ever  be  justly  put 
into  the  constitution  for  it  could  only  be  justly  done  by 
every  one  agreeing  to  it  at  the  time  it  is  put  in  and  by 
every  citizen  ratifying  it  on  reaching  his  majority  or  be- 
coming a  citizen  by  adoption.  It  therefore  has  no  more 
place  in  the  financial  discussion  than  has  the  story  of 
Aladdin  and  his  wonderful  lamp.  The  one  whose  letter 
is  quoted  is  an  orchardist  in  a  part  of  Missouri  (fitted  to 
support  as  dense  a  population  as  France),  where  the 


lU  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

round,  honest  face  of  a  silver  dollar  is  as  welcome  as  the 
sun,  and  where  in  one  county  of  20,000  people  and  1,200 
square  miles  there  has  probably  never  been  one  silver 
dollar  per  head  of  people,  and  where  much  business  is 
done  by  barter.  No  quarter  of  the  world  is  better  suited 
for  fruit  raising.  In  no  other  part  of  the  world  is  this 
fruit  more  eagerly  bought  than  in  the  mining  districts  of 
gold  and  silver  in  Colorado.  This  orchardist's  proposi- 
tion amounts  to  saying  to  the  miners  in  Colorado,  "You 
and  all  the  other  citizens  should  join  me  in  putting  our 
names  to  a  promissory  note  redeemable  in  taxes,  and  give 
it  to  me  to  use  in  extending  my  orchard  and  producing 
and  handling  my  fruit."  The  miners  could  properly  reply: 
''Our  written  social  compact,  the  constitution,  makes  no 
provision  for  the  use  of  pubHc  credit  for  private  purposes, 
nor  could  we  be  held  in  the  union  otherwise  than  by  force 
unjustly  exerted,  if  it  did  so  provide.  But  we  have  here 
the  only  two  substances  in  nature  fitted  for  the  common 
medium  of  exchange,  and  if  you  will  help  us  to  get  back 
our  right  to  use  them  both,  which  is  as  natural  as  your 
right  to  use  your  fruit  for  any  purpose  for  which  it  is 
suited,  there  will  be  no  need  of  anybody  signing  the  note 
representing  the  pubHc  credit."  To  construe  the  power 
"to  borrow  money  on  the  credit  of  the  United  States"  to 
include  the  power  to  injure  the  business  of  getting  that 
money  from  nature  is  so  plainly  fallacious  that  it  scarcely 
needs  to  be  any  more  than  stated.  The  Colorado  miners 
might  then  and  there  impress  upon  the  orchardist  the 
words  of  Max  Muller  that  are  so  truly  applicable  here: 
"The  world  is  right.  We  ourselves  only  derange  and 
huddle  and  muddle  it."  And  they  might  ask  him  how  he 
would  like  to  have  the  government  to  forbid  the  use  of  his 
apples  in  pies  or  dumplings  as  it  forbids  the  use  of  their 
silver  as  money.    Or  they  might  ask  him  to  go  on  a  note 


tHE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  185 

with  them — that  is,  have  the  government  issue  notes — 
to  be  used  in  buying  apples,  or  some  fruit  as  a  substitute, 
from  foreigners  in  other  lands  to  sell  to  Colorado  miners 
because  they  can  be  had  much  cheaper  than  he  will  sell 
them  his.  Anybody  anywhere  has  the  natural  right  to  use 
silver  or  trade  for  silver  that  has  its  natural  value  unin- 
terfered  with,  as  well  as  those  who  mine  it  have.  Fiat  in- 
terferes with  all  the  world's  rights. 

The  restriction  of  the  use  of  the  "public  credit  for  pur- 
poses only,"  as  the  Cincinnati  Democratic  platform  1880 
stated  (aiming  it  against  greenbackism  and  striking 
equally  national  banking),  is  even  a  more  important  pres- 
ervation of  natural  rights  than  the  right  to  bear  arms. 
If  the  paper-fiatists  could  have  had  their  way  we  would 
have  found  that  the  first  time  we  needed  it  to  use  in  rais- 
ing and  maintaining  armies  and  navies  for  the  public  de- 
fense that  there  is  no  pubhc  credit,  it  being  all  used  up. 
But  those  who  believe  that  something  can  be  made  out  of 
nothing  will  never  believe  this. 

They  are  undismayed  at  the  tremendous  undertaking 
of  a  parent  bank  of  issue  for  seventy  millions,  soon  to  be 
a  hundred  millions.  In  the  wisdom  of  some  future  Con- 
gress that  is  to  decide  the  volume  to  be  issued  and  please 
all  with  the  division  of  it  among  borrowers;  that  is  to 
be  able  to  mollify  the  man  who  borrows  when  land  is  low- 
er and  who  sees  his  neighbor  get  more  per  acre  on 
his  land  when  issues  have  inflated  land  values;  to 
decide  how  apple  land  is  going  to  be  rated  witlf  hemp 
land,  and  how  a  coal  plant  is  going  to  be  rated  as  a  security 
in  a  mild  winter  with  one  in  a  cold  winter,  or  with  a  silver 
or  iron  mine  in  any  winter — all  of  these  difficulties  they 
get  over  with  as  little  difficulty  as  the  prince  in  Arabian 
Nights  went  through  the  air  mounted  on  the  Enchanted 
Horse.    Yet  what  is  there  in  the  conduct  of  any  Congress 


186  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

in  the  last  three-quarters  of  a  century  to  justify  any  one  in 
supposing  that  we  will  ever  have  one  so  nearly  possessed 
of  supreme  wisdom  and  justice?  What  is  there  in  the 
nature  and  capabilities  of  mankind  to  justify  such  dreams? 
This  is  merely  another  set  of  fiatists  who  want  to  substi- 
tute Laissez  moi  faire  for  laissez  faire.  Laying  aside  the 
fact  that  it  transgresses  natural  rights,  that  it  is  unconsti- 
tutional, the  practical  difficulties  being  unsurmountable, 
one  should  no  more  harbor  the  idea  of  agreeing  to  allow 
a  proof  of  its  impracticability  by  a  trial  than  he  should 
allow  children  to  play  with  razors  because  they  shine,  or 
powder  because  of  its  brilliant  corruscations. 

The  national  banking  system  in  its  practical  workings 
might  well  dismay  the  advocates  of  government  loans. 
Its  attempt  to  do  a  part  of  the  banking  is  a  failure.  Its 
intricate  and  expensive  and  annoying  system  of  espionage 
does  not  accomplish  the  purpose  intended.  In  countries 
where  there  are  no  examinations  the  failures  are  fewer. 
The  comptroller,  after  all  the  power  given  him  is  used, 
must  needs  call  on  every  State  and  private  banker  to  help 
him  check  off  the  items  in  the  reports  of  their  city  cor- 
respondents. Five  thousand  banks  outside  of  his  system 
must  undertake  the  ''thank  you"  job  of  helping  him  check 
up  the  banks  in  his  system  at  a  very  considerable  expense 
of  time  and  clerk  hire,  in  spying  upon  ''the  best  banking 
system  we  ever  had."*  Too  much  work  may  be  put  on 
a  man  or  on  a  body  of  men  as  a  congress.  And  when 
we  add  a  banking  department  to  the  government,  no  more 
contemplated  in  the  constitution  than  a  boot  and  shoe 
manufacturing  department,  it  is  no  wonder  that  the  Con- 
gress is  a  failure  as  a  banker  and  as  everything  else. 

♦When  a  city  national  bank  is  examined  the  examiner  writes 
to  the  state  and  private  bankers  and  asks  if  they  actually  have 
the  money  deposited  in  the  examined  bank  that  the  latter's 
books  show. 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  U1 

The  vice  of  the  system  of  making  the  government  a 
bank  of  direct  issue  that  may  be  called  the  spine  of  the 
Whole  is  that  when  its  customers  become  dissatisfied  they 
can  not  change,  as  is  done  in  the  case  of  bank  customers. 
They  will  have  but  one  resource:  upset  the  bank;  that  is, 
the  government.  That  faith  that  can  see  no  likelihood 
that  greed  would  get  in  its  work  as  a  "bull"  or  a  ''bear" 
in  manipulating  the  politics,  so  as  to  Control  the  adminis- 
tration and  thus  the  money  issue,  and  thus  at  last  all  prices 
— that  indeed  deserves  the  name  of  "simple  faith."  It 
ought  to  be  able  to  remove  mountains  and  cast  them  into 
the  sea.  In  practice  it  would  put  the  business  of  the  coun- 
try "at  sea"  and  "not  by  faith  but  by  sig'ht"  we  would 
know  of  its  universal  wreck.  Look  back  at  the  banker^s 
picture  of  the  thousands  coming  into  New  York  City  to 
their  various  works;  multiply  them  and  their  work  into 
seventy  millions  and  their  work,  think  of  the  vast  com- 
plexity and  variety  of  the  actions  and  things  that  make  up 
our  business  life;  then,  although  no  one  can  possibly  tell 
how  much  money  any  one  state  will  need,  think  of  one 
trying  to  formulate  a  "plan"  to  suit  all  and  supply  all! 
The  simplicity  and  ignorance  of  childhood,  the  ambition 
of  an  Alexander  to  make  a  new  world,  must  combine  in 
the  person  who  asks  us  to  try  such  a  plan. 

These  plans  of  using  the  public  credit  by  loans  directly 
to  individuals  are  partly  socialistic,  but  their  advocates  do 
not  see  that  there  is  no  special  provision  for  them  in  the 
constitution  as  in  the  case  of  its  socialistic  features,  the 
army  and  postoffice.  National  banking  is  partly  social- 
istic, too,  and  as  there  is  no  provision  for  it  in  the  consti- 
tution the  supreme  court  put  one  in.  A  completely  social- 
istic use  of  the  public  credit  as.  the  medium  of  exchange 
would  neither  be  to  lend  it  alone  to  land-owners,  nor  hold- 
ers of  warehouse  receipts,  nor  bond-holders.     It  would 


188  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

be  to  lend  it  to  all  who  contribute  to  create  it,  in  propor- 
tion to  their  share  in  its  creation,  no  matter  how  they  con- 
tribute. Greenbackism  and  Populism  and  national  bank- 
ing alike  say  that  **unto  him  that  hath  shall  be  given" 
(the  use  of  the  public  credit.)  As  under  the  natural,  the 
original  and  only  just  system — that  of  gold  and  silver 
only — whoever  wants  money  must  directly  or  indirectly 
pay  labor  to  dig  it,  all  of  these  paper  systems  also  say: 
''And  from  him  that  hath  not  shall  be  taken  away,  even 
that  which  he  hath"  (the  office  of  supplying  the  world 
with  money  by  his  muscle  and  bravery.) 

Governor  Tillman,  in  the  St.  Louis  silver  convention, 
said  "gold  is  a  robber,"  and  Greenbackers  never  tire  of 
assailing  it  and  silver,  too,  for  shrinking  away  like  cow- 
ards in  the  war.  "These  be  bitter  words."  But  they  are 
like  the  Irish  boy^s  description  of  salt:  "That  stuff  that 
makes  potatoes  taste  so  bad  when  there  is  none  on  them." 
It  is  as  purely  a  relic  of  our  inborn  superstition  as  to  quar- 
rel with  figures  for  not  bringing  the  answer  to  the 
problem,  or  with  one's  books  for  not  balancing.  The 
blame  is  in  those  who  mistreat  the  metals,  not  in  the 
metals.  In  those  who  transgress  the  laws  of  nature  in  re- 
gard to  human  rights. 

Because  a  financial  plan  is  old  it  does  not  alone  con- 
demn it,  but  few  who  want  the  public  credit  lent  to  them 
on  their  land  know  that  the  same  fever  raged  in  England 
two  hundred  years  ago.  Few  Greenbackers  or  Populists 
know  that  in  the  "Somers  Tracts"  they  can  find  the  birth 
of  Greenbackism  recorded.  Frqm  my  pamphlet  of  1878 
comes  the  following: 

"Mr.  Britton  A.  Hill  calls  the  absolute  money  scheme 
*A  new  system  of  national  finance.'  But  there  is  noth- 
ing new  in  it.  What  he  and  his  followers  probably  think 
is  the  newest  feature  of  it,  is  the  oldest. 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  1^9 

"In  Godfrey's  account  of  the  Bank  of  England  (Somer's 
Tracts,  Vol.  XL)  occurs  the  following:  There  are  others 
who  are  for  forcing  a  currency  of  bills,  or  tallies,  and  think 
they  may  pass  as  well  as  bank  bills.  But  they  do  not  con- 
sider that  it  is  nothing  makes  bank  bills  current,  but  only 
because  that  all  those  who  desire  it  can  go,  when  they 
will,  and  fetch  their  money  for  them;  and  to  force  any- 
thing to  pass  in  payment  but  money  would  soon  end  in 
coiifusion.' " 

The  first  motive  of  paper  fiatism  (asking  for  cfirect  issues 
by  government)  is  easily  seen.  The  far-seeing  became 
owners  of  all  the  debts  they  could  and  made  the  time  as 
long  as  possible.  They  sold  land  and  commodities  know- 
ing that  generally  they  would  be  lower  from  year  to  year. 
The  short-sighted  bought  and  went  into  debt.  Then  when 
the  return  to  dearer  money  (because  of  less  volume)  be- 
gan, the  short-sighted  found  themselves  caught.  They 
wanted  an  inflation  of  legal  tender  paper  to  raise  prices 
until  they  could  get  out.  Long  study  of  the  subject  from 
one  side  only  has  fired  many  men  with  the  ambition  to 
invent  some  "new  system  of  finance"  that  is  not  "content 
with  our  horizons,"  and  that  will  carry  happiness  to  all 
men,  add  grandeur  to  the  republic  and  cut  the  name  of 
the  inventor  ineffaceably  into  the  hearthstone  of  every 
home  in  the  land.  Fiat  will  never  accomplish  it.  As  long 
as  I  have  written  I  have  said  that  the  subject  is  too  many 
thousand  years  old  to  add  anything  new  to  it  by  fabrica- 
tion or  invention.  As  Max  MuUer  says,  "We  must  learn 
to  be  content  with  our  horizons."  We  are  not  yet  in  Val- 
hella,  where  the  laws  of  nature  on  earth  are  not  in  force. 
We  must  put  up  with  silver  which  is  heavy  and  gold  that 
quickly  wears.  All  attempts  to  escape  from  the  opera- 
tions of  these  laws  of  nature  fail  of  the  object  and  cost 


1^0  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

more  than  all  the  disadvantages  that  are  inseparable  from 
the  use  of  the  money  metals. 

In  Gouge's  History  of  American  Currency,  a  scarce, 
rare  and  obscure  little  pamphlet,  yet  worth  more  than 
Sumner's,  Poor's,  Bolles',  and  all  the  sort  together,  he 
tells  that  in  1819  a  Mr.  Bledsoe  in  the  Kentucky  Legis- 
lature proposed  substantially  our  present  system  of  green- 
backs. Gouge  himself  says  (1835):  "In  no  small  degree 
will  the  public  distress  be  increased  by  well-meant  but 
ill-directed  attempts  to  give  relief.  *  *  *  Instead  of 
tracing  its  cause  to  some  positive  institution,  the  removal 
of  which,  while  it  might  not  immediately  relieve  distress 
would  prevent  its  recurrence,  men  set  themselves  to  heap- 
ing law  upon  law,  institution  upon  institution."  (Princip. 
of  Am.  Bkg.  System,  p.  39.) 

There  is  much  indefiniteness  in  their  plans,  and  it  is 
not  certain  whether  they  are  all  for  no  redemption  or  not; 
for  redeemability  by  acceptance  by  government  or  by 
some  other  plan.  As  "greenbacks"  never  meant  anything 
but  promises  to  pay  money,  I  said  in  the  pamphlet  of  1878, 
"Absolute  Money"  men  have  no  right  to  the  name  of 
"Greenbackers."  They  advocate  the  issue  of  a  substitute 
for  money  that  we  have  never  yet  tried.  As  they  claim 
to  have  invented  a  new  financial  system,  they  ought  to 
invent  a  name,  and  wear  it,  such  as  "Absolutists,"  or  "Fiat- 
ers,"  and  not  use  a  name  long  understood  to  mean  some- 
thing else. 

The  Greenback  party  died  because  it  could  not  tell  how 
the  paper  proposed  to  be  issued  was  to  get  out  of  the 
treasury  into  the  pockets  of  those  who  wanted  it.  Its 
successor  has  risen  on  a  plan  for  getting  it  out — by  direct 
loans.  The  natural  liberty  to  use  silver  and  the  unnatural 
slavery  of  all  having  to  sign  notes  to  circulate  as  currency 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  191 

IS  such  an  incongruity,  such  an  odd  mixture  that  the  plat- 
forms of  the  party  in  which  the  two  are  found  together 
recall  some  of  the  titles  of  comic  operas  in  which  two 
things  most  incongruous  are  joined  for  a  name  for  the 
play.  Coin  is  private  property  dedicated  to  quasi  public 
use.  They  want  public  property  turned  over  for  private 
use  or  a  quasi  private  use. 

Greenbackers  and  Populists  are  patriotic  though  mis- 
taken. They  ought  to  see  that  as  long  as  there  is  enough 
metal  to  use  as  the  medium  of  exchange  it  is  worse  than 
folly  to  cripple  the  public  credit  by  using  it.  There  came 
a  time  when  these  states  could  no  longer  live  half  free 
and  half  slave.  The  time  is  upon  us  when  the  EngHsh- 
speaking,  the  so-called  Anglo-Saxon  race  must  be  all 
republican  or  all  imperial  in  government.  Mr.  Cleve- 
land's maneuvers  and  Bayard's  slobberings  in  England 
and  their  zeal  to  forward  England's  money  schemes  tell 
plainer  than  words  that  we  must  become  a  part  of  the 
English  Empire  or  kick  the  last  vestige  of  royalty  out  of 
North  America,  and  some  of  our  Cleveland-Bayard  royal- 
ists along  with  them.  Simply  to  give  themselves^a  contin- 
uous railroad  line  from  New  York  to  Seattle,  the  Vander- 
bilts  and  Depews  would  do  anything  in  their  power  to 
make  this  union  one  with  Canada  under  British  rule.  Face 
to  face  with  the  coming  struggle  with  our  one  great  enemy 
in  all  the  world  we  ought  to  get  in  all  evidences  of  debt 
and  be  ready  for  that  supreme  event  without  public  debt 
and  with  our  country  saturated  with  coin  and  not  a  dol- 
lar of  paper  in  it.  To  use  the  public  credit  for  a  medium 
of  exchange  for  a  purpose  for  which  something  else  does 
better  is  a  folly  of  the  same  sort  as  a  frontiersman  ruining 
the  temper  and  the  keen  point  of  his  bowie-knife  by  tak- 
ing hot  meat  out  of  the  frying  pan  or  fire  with  it,  and  when 
desperately  in  need  of  it  for  use  on  a  bear  or  Indian  it  is 


192  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

less  useful  to  him.  That  there  is  a  royalist  party  among 
us  there  is  no  longer  a  doubt. 

The  insidiousness  at  first  and  the  final  boldness  of  usur- 
pation is  well  shown  in  our  history.  When  the  aristocratic 
party  under  Hamilton  made  their  first  steps  toward  steal- 
ing labor's  birthright — ^that  of  furnishing  the  only  cur- 
rency, pick-and-shovel  money — they  were  sly  and  timid, 
though  active.  So  well  were  they  beaten  by  the  demo- 
cratic masses  in  Jackson's  day  that  down  to  1857  in  Con- 
gress there  was  great  difficulty  in  getting  the  senate  to 
allow  the  issue  of  treasury  notes  not  requiring  endorse- 
ment by  every  'successive  owner.  To-day  the  State  of 
Mississippi's  officers  are  under  Federal  indictment  for 
issuing  their  own  treasury  drafts  in  a  form  resembling  in 
looks  what  the  Federal  Government  has  unconstitution- 
ally seized  the  power  to  issue !  Looking  at  what  our  ances- 
tors were  as  free  barbarians  in  Europe  and  what  the  pres- 
ent people  there  have  remaining  of  ancient  liberties,  the 
wonder  is  that  there  has  been  only  one  French  revolution. 
And  another  is  that  we  have  let  our  natural  and  inherited 
liberties  lapse  until  we  are  so  dangerously  near  to  a  repe- 
tition of  it  here. 

A  great  many  new  schemes  are  proposed,  but  they  all 
at  once  divide  the  opposition  to  gold  fiatism  and  issue- 
bank  tyranny.  There  is  but  one  thing  to  unite  on :  Na- 
ural  right  and  the  constitution.  The  most  bitterly  assailed 
by  the  American  and  foreign  ring  organs,  the  so-called 
"sub-treasury  plan,"  is  the  most  nearly  fair  and  the  solid- 
est  of  all  ever  proposed.  It  would  be  a  purchase  by  the 
Federal  Government  of  wheat,  cotton,  etc.,  things  that 
are  always  demanded  and  that  could  be  quickly  turned 
over  and  the  proceeds  used  to  redeem  the  paper  issued 
for  them.  But  it  has  the  same  vice  that  national  bank- 
ing has:  it  is  using  the  Federal  Government  socialistically 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  193 

whilst  we  are  still  in  the  individualist  stage,  and  under  a 
constitution  mainly  of  the  individualistic  type,  and  other 
vices  named.  The  practical  advantage  that  issue-bank 
currency  has  over  all  the  various  schemes  for  direct  issue 
of  the  public  credit  to  borrowers  is  that  the  want  of  bor- 
rowed capital  is  an  ever-present  want  of  most  persons 
who  can  command  it,  and  they  must  first  wait  till  one  of 
the  many  schemes  gets  the  consent  of  all  who  favor 
schemes  of  that  nature — loans  on  land,  on  crops,  issue  by 
pubHc  works,  etc.,  etc.  Then  if  all  would  unite  on  one 
plan  and  elect  their  congress  and  try  to  realize  it,  at  least 
three-fourths  of  the  business  of  the  country  might  be  in 
bankruptcy  before  it  could  come  to  their  relief.  That  is 
why  the  average  borrower  sticks  to  the  bank.  And  tlie 
"sub-treasury  plan"  is  not  fair  to  all,  and  there  is  no  rea- 
son for  being  unfair  to  any.  Common  sense  put  into  the 
form  of  a  law  maxim  says  that  one  man  shall  not  get  the 
property  of  another  for  nothing.  This  forbids  any  kind 
of  paper  currency  that  we  have  ever  had  proposed  or 
ever  had  in  fact.  The  best  possible  condition  for  us  is  to 
have  no  national  debt — to  have  our  public  credit  com- 
plete and  unused — and  to  have  the  country  saturated  with 
gold  and  silver.  Bank  paper  currency  should  be  crushed 
out  forever.  And  every  patriot  should  see  that  all  schemes 
for  using  the  pubHc  credit  as  paper  currency  weaken  and 
unfit  us  for  great  emergencies  and  leave  us  in  case  of  war 
dependent  upon  the  home  and  foreign  harpies  who  want 
our  bonds  and  who  always  get  them  below  par  and  sell 
them  back  at  a  premium. 

As  no  system  of  paper  currency  has  any  right  to  exist 
we  have  no  choice  but  to  use  gold  and  silver. 


194  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY, 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE  CRUCIAL  TEST  AND  ABSOLUTE  PROOF. 

And  hereupon  follows  in  natural  order  the  crucial  test 
that  proves  absolutely  that  these  are  the  principles  of  the 
science  of  money,  which,  enforced,  will  bring  us  as  near 
as  we  can  be  brought  under  present  circumstances  to 
equal  and  exact  justice  for  all,  in  our  national  financial 
system.  As  law,  truly  defined,  can  have  nothing  in  it  but 
what  is  already  in  nature;  as  legislation  is  only  the  ma- 
chinery for  carrying  law  into  efifect;  i.  e.,  for  giving  each 
individual  the  opportunity  to  exercise  his  natural  rights, 
and  seeing  that  none  are  taken  from  him,  it  is  easy  to  see 
that  if  each  man  would  respect  the  rights  of  the  others 
without  legislation  and  its  train  of  judicial  and  ministerial 
officers,  if  no  one  would  infringe  upon  any  other  person's 
rights — then  we  could  repeal  every  statute  and  wipe  out 
every  code  in  all  the  world.  We  could  do  this  if  the  first 
step  were  taken  toward  living  under  the  perfect  law.  That 
first  step  is  justice.  That  perfect  law  is  best  known  to  us 
as  "the  second  great  commandment,"  was  taught  by 
Buddha,  Confucius,  and  is  found  in  those  ancient  records 
■of  our  Northern  ancestors,  the  Eddas.  Suppose  that  but 
the  law  of  equal  and  exact  justice  were  written  in  all 
hearts  and  so  need  not  to  be  written  elsewhere.  What 
would  be  the  medium  of  exchange  if  all  laws  on  the  sub- 
ject of  money  were  repealed  everywhere  in  the  world, 
because  they  could  be  safely  repealed?  Beyond  all  ques- 
tion gold  and  silver  would  be  the  only  medium  of  ex- 
i:hange  in  that  part  of  the  world  now  most  concerning  it- 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  195 

self  about  the  "money  question" — Europe  and  America. 
Hence  bullionism  asks  nothing  from  any  man  but  jus- 
tice, but  natural  right.  Burn  all  the  paper  currency  in  the 
world  and  repeal  every  law  in  the  world  relating  to  money" 
and  leave  us  with  only  the  "law  merchant,"  as  we  know 
it  was  by  having  fixed  it  in  memory  by  what  is  known  as 
the  statute  of  Queen  Anne,  and  we  would  at  once  have 
gold  and  silver,  and  them  only,  as  money,  and  their  ratio 
would  be  I  to  15^.  For  the  ratio  depends  on  the  quan- 
tity of  each  in  existence  and  procurable.  The  French  test 
and  our  two  failures  on  one  and  the  other  side  of  it  show 
that  this  ratio  is  part  of  the  universe  of  order  in  depart- 
ments where  men,  thinking  there  is  no  order,  create  dis- 
order; (and  it  rebukes  them)  as  the  statistics  of  crime 
shown  by  Buckle  prove  an  orderly  procession  of  nature 
where  men  thought  before  that  all  was  haphazard. 

Trenholm  says: 

"In  various  parts  of  the  world  money  is  of  different 
substances  and  forms;  but  what  gives  to  every  form  of 
money  all  the  force  it  has,  what  can  alone  confer  upon 
anything  the  power  to  pass  unquestioned  from  hand  to 
hand,  exchanging  and  measuring  values,  is  the  confidence 
and  consent  of  the  people  among  whom  it  circulates.  Ex- 
cept for  the  settlement  of  contracts,  the  payment  of  debts, 
and  the  discharge  of  public  dues,  the  power  of  the  govern- 
ment to  prescribe  a  currency  is  absolutely  limited  by  the 
acquiescence  of  the  people,  and  stability  in  the  purchasing 
power  of  such  currency  depends  from  day  to  day  upon  the 
continuance  of  that  acquiescence." 

Let  him  apply  to  this  the  crucial  test  of  supposing  all 
laws  in  the  world  relating  to  money  repealed.  The  effect 
beyond  any  question  would  simply  be  to  put  us  back  on 
the  road  that  we  came  over.  Beginning  again  we  would 
have  silver  and  gold  as  the  medium  of  exchange  as  man 


196  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

had  them  before  he  had  the  laws  about  them.  Thus  we 
"go"  Wells,  Harter,  and  the  editor  of  the  Century  ''one 
better,"  and  a  very  large  one,  on  their  proposition  to  re- 
peal all  Federal  legal  tender  laws  in  this  union.  And 
not  only  so,  but  we  throw  down  a  challenge  that  neither 
Eastern  fiatism  nor  Western  fiatism — Rothschild's  fiat- 
ism,  nor  Britton  A.  Hill's  fiatism,  barefaced  stealing  on 
purpose,  or  philanthropic  and  ambitious  desire  to  invent 
or  fabricate  a  new  and  beneficent  "plan" — will  dare  to 
take  up.  Thus  must  fiatism  surrender  to  natural  right 
advancing  under  the  scientific  method.  Thus  does  the 
citadel  and  every  part  of  the  fortress  of  fiatism  fall. 

This  test  brings  into  strong  light  the  motive  in  re-estab- 
lishing the  feudal  system,  with  money  instead  of  swords; 
to  take  from  one  man  the  right  to  get  money  from  nature 
and  make  him  pay  another  for  a  substitute  for  it — the 
substitute  being  as  much  his  as  the  man's  whom  he  pays 
for  it.  These  combined  charlatans  and  sharks  want  a 
financial  system  in  which  the  Federal  Government  is  to 
coin  gold  for  whoever  brings  it  to  the  mint,  and  in  that 
the  bulk  of  the  circulating  medium  (national  bank  notes) 
is  to  be  nominally  redeemable;,  and  write  promissory 
notes  of  denominations  of  ten,  twenty-five  and  fifty  cents, 
redeemable  in  gold  when  presented  in  sums  of  twenty 
dollars  and  multiples  thereof,  and  like  notes  of  five  cents 
and  of  one  cent  respectively  on  nickel  and  copper.  And 
such  heterogeneous  sources  and  results  is  called  a  financial 
system  by  Pompous  University  Ignorance  in  the  pay  of 
Plutocracy. 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  W 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

CONFERENCES  WITH  FOREIGN  NATIONS. 

The  proposal  of  money  conferences  with  foreign  nations 
is  one  of  the  most  dishonest  ever  made  by  the  fiatists.  They 
know  with  absolute  certainty  that  their  European  partner 
will  not  agree  to  any  modification,  and  they  propose  it 
only  to  keep  our  people  quiet  a  little  longer.  The  plan 
is  exactly  that  of  a  "three-card-monte"  or  "bunco"  gam- 
bler who  has  his  partner  to  pose  as  a  stranger  and  be 
chosen  as  referee  in  deciding  a  bet.  Every  president  in 
whose  term  it  has  been  proposed  knows  what  it  is  for, 
unless  a  simpleton.  It  is  thoroughly  dishonest,  for  the 
proposal  puts  this  nation  in  the  most  contemptible  posi- 
tion it  has  been  put  in  since  it  paid  tribute  to  the  Barbary 
States  to  get  them  to  keep  their  pirates  from  plundering 
our  merchant  marine  and  enslaving  our  sailors.  We  are 
begging  foreign  despotisms  to  help  us  to  obey  our  own 
constitution.  The  proposal  is  an  acknowledgment  that 
flat  makes  and  unmakes  money.  Money  is  what  no  one 
ever  gets  enough  of.  The  way  to  make  others  want  silver 
is  not  by  begging  them  to  take  it,  but  by  using  so  much 
of  it  ourselves  that  the  scarcity  of  it  will  make  them  grab 
for  it.  Besides,  the  one  thing  most  important  to  the  resto- 
ration of  natural  rights  in  the  matter  of  our  national 
finances  so  as  not  to  cause  trouble  and  do  damage  is  that 
Europe  do  not  forsake  fiatism  or  adopt  the  natural  sys- 
tem. If  Europe  and  America  both  were  to  return  to  the 
natural  system  at  once  and  destroy  all  paper  money  there 
would  not  be  enough  coin  for  all,  in  comparison  with  the 


198  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

debts  made  in  the  days  of  fiatism.  We  especially  would 
be  as  those  were  who  went  into  debt  for  values  quoted 
in  greenbacks  and  national  notes  worth  fifty  cents  on  the 
dollar,  and  each  dollar  of  which  is  now  a  demand  for  two 
or  three  times  as  much,  in  eflfect.  The  stopping  expenses 
by  paying  bonds  and  the  saving  by  paying  out  the  gold 
held  as  a  redemption' fund  would  be  an  offset  to  the  short- 
ening of  volume  of  circulating  medium.  One  of  the  pen- 
alties of  practicing  slavery  is  that  there  is  always  some 
shock  in  changing  from  it  to  freedom.  This  is  a  question 
of  human  rights  and  Europe  is  no  more  the  proper  tribu- 
nal to  which  we  should  refer  it  than  if  it  were  any  other 
question  that  must  be  settled  by  the  principles  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence.  "Refer  it  to  Europe"  is  the 
latter  half  of  a  doctrine  that  has  many  supporters  among 
thei  American  Tories,  of  which  the  first  part  is  "the  (Amer- 
ican) public  be  damned." 

Unless  the  workingmen  and  farmers  of  our  Eastern 
States  shake  off  the  slavery  to  banks  and  railroad  and 
trust  lords  very  soon,  the  West  will  have  to  rescue  their 
section  from  decay  as  the  Goths  overran  and  purified  the 
rotting  Roman  Empire.  In  the  East  one  can  see  a  cowed 
and  cringing  manner  in  the  presence  of  stolen  capital  that 
has  not  yet  reached  the  West  and  South,  where  the  strug- 
gle for  existence  is  not  yet  as  severe,  and  where  the  hun- 
ger-knout has  not  to  as  great  an  extent  laid  open  gaping 
wounds  on  the  back  of  fiat-made  poverty.  To  the  Hun- 
garians Kossuth  said:  "It  is  to  ourselves  that  we  must 
look  for  strength.  The  nation  that  only  exists  by  the  help 
of  others  is  not  born  to  live."  We  have  proved  our 
strength  in  war,  and  do  not  fear  any  or  all.  Whenever  we 
go  back  to  natural  rights  in  finance  we  will  have  Europe's 
monarchies  at  our  feet  instead  of  kneeling  at  theirs.  The 
French  and  Swiss,  the  two  free  peoples  of  Europe,  will 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  19d 

certainly  follow  our  example,  because  they  then  can  and 
now  want  to.  It  is  therefore  all-important  that  we  adopt 
the  true  ratio  which  France  has,  i  to  15 J,  and  not  the 
false  one  of  i  to  16  (or  i  to  15.98),  under  which  we  would 
lose  our  silver  to  France  as  before.  Had"  French  states- 
men of  this  day  read  and  understood  Turgot  and  in  obedi- 
ence to  his  teachings  retired  all  their  paper  curerncy,  they 
needed  not  to  have  stopped  the  coinage  of  silver.  They 
would  then  have  been  in  the  proud  position  that  is  still 
open  to  us,  of  financial  leader  of  the  world.  When  we  take 
the  place  we  will  find,  and  Europe  will  find,  that  we  do 
not  intend  that  the  statues  of  Monroe  built  in  the  South 
American  republics  are  to  stand  in  derision  or  be  pulled 
down  in  contempt  by  those  who  set  them  up,  a's  they 
would  be  if  we  allow  the  decaying  manhood  of  our  North- 
eastern States  to  cowardly  back  down  from  it  or  basely 
sell  it  out,  as  I  judge  from  Hill's  speeches  and  Cleveland's 
action  and  want  of  action,  and  the  speeches  of  the  English 
toady  Bayard,  they  are  getting  ready  to  do.  When  Mexi- 
co sees  her  silver  back  at  its  natural  value  everywhere  in 
the  world,  by  our  action,  it  will  prove  to  her  the  value  of 
our  friendship  in  a  way  that  must  give  us  an  advantage  in 
trade  with  her  that  will  kill  the  effect  of  the  scheming 
slanderous  enmity  of  the  English  now  in  Mexico,  inces- 
santly directed  to  prejudicing  the  Mexicans  against  us.* 
It  would  be  as  useless  and  improper  for  us  to  wait  on  for- 
eign nations  for  cooperation  in  adopting  the  Declaration  of 
Independence  as  to  ask  for  it  in  acting  on  the  principles 
of  the  science  of  money,  for  they  are  of  a  piece. 
To  those  cowards  who  think  that  the  United  States 

*A  young  American  told  me  that  he  worked  for  an  English 
mining  company  in  Mexico,  and  that  one  of  the  most  important 
parts  of  their  business  was  to  teach  the  Mexicans  to  hate  the 
Americans. 


^00  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHt. 

could  not  now  single-handed  settle  the  question  by  return- 
ing to  constitutional  coinage  I  call  attention  to  the  cause 
overlooked  by  the  Britannica,  and  which  was  the  chief 
cause.  We  could  have  taken  up  the  whole  output  of 
$75,000,000  for  five  years  by  retiring  either  our  national 
bank  paper  or  the  greenbacks. 

Norman  says  (p.  313):  "It  may  be  confidently  pre- 
dicted that  if  the  United  States  of  America,  even  without 
the  support  which  the  Latin  Union  could  afford,  opened 
their  mints  to  the  unlimited  reception  of  silver  as  well  as 
gold,  in  the  proportions  of  sixteen  parts  of  silver  to  one 
of  gold,  with  the  endeavor  to  make  both  metals  equally 
effective  standards,  the  exchanges  of  gold  for  silver  and 
silver  for  gold,  between  gold  and  silver  countries,  would 
at  once  revert  to  the  position  they  occupied  prior  to  1873. 
As  an  illustration,  the  par  of  exchange  between  India  and 
the  British  Isles  wOuld  become  absolutely — -at  sixteen 
of  silver  to  one  of  gold — 21.78  pence  to  rupee."*  There 
would  thus  have  been  no  surplus  silver  and  no  disturb- 
ance of  its  market  value  if  we  had  got  rid  of  our  "debt 
money"  at  the  time  that  fate  put  it  in  our  power.  It  was 
our  duty  to  do  it.  Common  sense  called  for  it  and  so 
did  patriotism.  But  greed  kept  part  of  the  paper  in  circu- 
lation and  hallucination  just  Hke  that  about  the 
philosophers'  stone  kept  the  greenbacks  afloat.  The  loss 
to  this  country  caused  thereby  has  been  greater  in  the 
two  years  of  the  Cleveland  famine  than  the  entire  volume 
of  that  paper  in  any  one  year. 

There  lies  hidden  in  the  proposals  for  foreign  confer- 
ences on  money  a  dangerous  "entangling  alliance."  The 
purpose  has  been  to  tie  our  country  up  in  a  treaty  at  some 

*As  fiat  can  not  create  value  where  would  this  value  come 
from?  It  would  simply  be  like  taking  the  weight  off  a  spring 
and  letting  it  come  to  its  natural  position. 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  1^01 

fiat-made  ratio  of  from  25  to  i  or  upwards  (a  ratio  at 
which  no  one  would  get  dollars  coined  and  no  one  would 
want  to  use  them  if  coined).  Then  we  would  be  told  that 
to  break  the  treaty  would  bring  on  war  with  all  the  Jew- 
ruled  European  powers. 


20^  'THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

GOLD-BASIS  FIATISM  A  SOFT  MONEY  SCHEME  AND  A 
MONARCHIST  PLOT. 

The  purpose  of  the  gold-basis  fiatists  is  not  to  do  away 
with  everything  but  gold  as  a  circulating  medium.  It  is 
to  have  gold  nominally  "the  standard  of  value,"  but  the 
circulating  medium  is  to  be  issue-bank  paper.  The  nation- 
al bank  notes  are  now  practically  a  legal  tender  for  all 
purposes.  The  few  who  might  want  to  refuse  them  would 
get  the  enmity  of  every  national  bank  and  nearly  every 
other  kind  of  bank.  Few  persons  hoard  money,  and  if 
"it  goes"  that  is  the  important  point  in  the  eyes  of  most 
persons  who  use  it.  The  gold  now  going  to  money  cen- 
ters as  noted  in  the  press  is  en  route  to  Europe.  The  bar- 
gain between  the  two  great  parties  to  this  partition  of  the 
property  of  the  world  is  that  Europe  is  to  have  the  gold 
and  the  American  Bank  Ring  to  have  coin's  empty  place, 
and  it  will  use  it  as  the  field  for  the  circulation  of  bank 
notes.  There  will  be  panics  and  demands  for  gold  on  the 
notes.  The  banks  will  suspend  specie  payments  and  issue 
"clearing  house  certificates,"  and  look  on  the  panic  very 
composedly.  The  same  story  will  be  repeated  that  de- 
scribes the  panic  of  1837  and  the  Federal  bank  of  that 
day:  "The  bank  was  saved  and  the  people  were  ruined." 
It  is  a  "soft  money"  scheme  masked  behind  a  (bob-tailed) 
hard  money  pretense.  It  is  the  old  familiar  "monster" 
against  which  in  its  younger  days  Jackson  and  Benton 
fought  so  bravely  and  successfully.  Its  strength  and  pow- 
er for  evil  are  ten  thousand  times  greater  now.  It  ordered 


tHE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  203 

the  panic  of  1893  on  and  ordered  it  off,  as  a  labor  organ- 
ization orders  a  strike.  Three-fourths  of  the  people  be- 
lieve that  the  President  of  the  United  States  was  a  party 
to  that  crime.  It  drives  honest  women  to  choose  be- 
tween prostitution  and  starvation.  It  forces  honest  labor- 
ers to  become  beggars  and  criminals.  It  murders  help- 
less sucklings  trying  to  get  fofiid  from  empty  breasts  of 
starving  mothers.     Its  work  is  the  sum  of  all  villainies. 

The  robber  class  everywhere  are  pessimists  about  re- 
publican institutions.  The  first  thought  of  men  who  have 
stolen  millions  here  is  that  they  may  be  forced  to  dis- 
gorge them  some  day.  They  are  against  liberty  and  jus- 
tice because  liberty  and  justice  are  against  oppression 
and  robbery.  So  they  look  around  for  some  titled  Euro- 
pean whom  they  can  hire,  with  some  of  what  they  have 
stolen,  to  marry  their  sisters  and  daughters;  though  the 
titled  loafers  to  whom  they  marry  them  look  on  marriage 
with  the  American  heiresses  about  as  a  Southerner  would 
look  on  marriage  with  a  negress,  and  they  treat  the  Amer- 
ican womeg  accordingly.  There  crops  out  of  the  writings 
of  Wells,  Sumner  and  their  school  that  pessimism  of 
republicanisi?!.  Wells'  long  service  as  a  writer  on  free 
trade  has  been  in  the  interest  of  England,  not  of  justice. 
Carnegie  cannot  be  looked  on  as  anything  but  a  like  emis- 
sary of  England,  using  the  opposite  doctrine  for  hood- 
winking, and  makir^g  sure  that  in  case  of  conflict  Eng- 
land would  find  our  ship  armor  rotten.  But  they  are  good 
enough  for  the  use  here  that  Whitney  and  Cleveland  in- 
tended them  for — the  cowing  of  starving  working  men; 
the  blockading  of  the  ports  of  California  and  the  South 
if  they  resist  usurpation.  For  such  persons  in  vain  did 
Wa*:hington  wield  his  sword  and  Jefferson  his  pen.  They 
remind  one  of  Heine's  remark  that  though  a  lady  bathe 
her  poodle  daily  in  cologne  water,  at  the  first  opportunity 


204  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

he  will  run  away  and  roll  in  carrion  to  give  himself  odors 
more  suitable  to  his  nature. 

The  course  pursued  by  these  slave  holders  would  rapids 
ly  deteriorate  the  strength  and  intelligence  of  the  Ameri- 
can working  men.  They  know  this,  and  gloat  over  the 
fact  that  it  will  leave  the  people  less  likely  to  resist  tyranny 
and  robbery.  Here  is  a  sample  of  child-torture  in  the 
England  in  whose  service  Cleveland,  Wells  and  the  rest 
are  working.  The  Right  Honorable  Susan  Countess  of 
Malmsbury,  speaks  of  the  children  who  are  "underfed  and 
thinly  clad,'^  who  "have  no  stamina,"  thus:  "I  remember 
visiting  a  poor  woman  about  one  o'clock.  *  *  *  One 
of  her  children  home  from  school  and  who  had  been  hover- 
ing anxiously  about,  at  last  could  stand  it  no  more,  and 
hiding  his  face  in  her  apron,  burst  into  tears:  'Mother,  my 
bit  of  bread !'  That  was  all  he  had  to  work  upon  from  9 
a.  m.  till  12,  and  again  for  several  hours  of  steady  work 
in  the  afternoon.  I  was  going  home  to  a  meal  of  several 
courses,  most  of  which  I  should  leave  on  my  plate  if  they 
were  not  cooked  entirely  to  my  satisfaction." 

It  is  vain  to  establish  libraries  and  multiply  schools  if 
w^e  at  the  same  time  bring  about  conditions  that  make  the 
lives  of  all  but  a  few  a  continual  toil  and  leave  them  no 
leisure.  They  urge  us  to  follow  the  example  of  "nations 
of  the  highest  civilization,"  the  majority  of  whose  people 
cannot  even  afford  to  keep  themselves  clean.  Nothing 
could  surpass  the  brazen  effrontery  of  these  men  who  hold 
up  to  us  England  as  a  model  of  civilization  whilst  the 
decent  world  stands  aghast  at  the  wretchedness  and  un- 
speakable degradation  found  in  her  borders  as  nowhere 
else  in  the  world,  considering  what  she  ought  to  be.  No 
country  in  the  world  can  show  such  wretchedness  as  Lon- 
don's poor  at  the  "East  End,"  and  the  rich  and  titled 
Sodomites  at  her  West  End  make  one  sorrv  that  we  even 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  205 

speak  the  same  language.  Poverty  drives  people  into 
erime  but  too  often.  We  should  arrange  economic  con- 
ditions so  there  will  be  no  excuse  for  crime,  and  then  weed 
out  incurable  criminals.  But  for  the  big  thieves,  who 
steal  under  forms  of  law,  to  punish  those  guilty  of  theft 
on  a  small  scale  is  unjust  and  tyrannical.  The  demonetiza- 
tion of  silver  is  theft  under  form  of  law.  It  is  well  to  seek 
out  and  dry  up  "well  springs  of  immorality,"  but  improp- 
er economic  condition's  are  a  deluge  submerging  conti- 
nents and  turning  some  human  inhabitants  back  into  base 
things  that  crawl  on  its  slimy  bed,  and  others  into  great 
monsters  of  prey  that  devour  the  first. 

The  first  irresistible  move  against  intemperance  will 
be  when  the  government  stops  living  off  the  liquor  traf- 
fic. The.  first  irresistible  move  towards  reducing  immor- 
ality and  crime  to  the  minimum  is — reformation  of  eco- 
nomic conditions  on  the  basis  of  natural  rights. 

A  very  intelligent  German,  a  refugee  from  the  events 
of  1848,  asked  me  if  I  had  ever  noticed  how  much  the 
children  born  to  foreign  parents  in  this  country  are  an 
improvement  on  their  parents  in  good  looks  and  good 
forms.  I  told  him  I  had,  and  we  agreed  that  it  was  the 
abundant  and  varied  dietary  and  especially  the  freedom 
here  that  made  the  stock  again  grow  stalwart  and  hand- 
some men  and  beautiful  women  after  centuries  of  crush- 
ing oppression  in  Europe.  But  the  gang  of  oppressors 
of  mankind  working  by  means  of  money  manipulation 
would  soon  give  us  the  same  results  that  are  seen  in 
Europe  as  they  openly  say.  Whither,  then,  will  we 
migrate?  There  is  no  place  left.  W^e.must  stand  our 
ground  and  fight  them  with  the  ballot,  which  will  make 
any  other  fighting  unnecessary. 

Gold-basis  fiatism  reduces  the  amount  of  food,  cloth- 
ing, comfort,  education,  thought,  leisure  for  cultivation, 


206  TilE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

of  which'  people  can  avail  themselves  and  is  thus  the  great 
crime  against  civilization  and  against  the  human  race. 
This  plot  originated  with  a  house  of  Jews  in  Europe, 
whose  members  are  rubbing  their  hands  with  delight  as 
they  see  that  they  have  conquered  the  Gentiles,  hated  for 
thousands  of  years,  by  dividing  them  and  allying  them- 
selves with  one  party.  To  accomplish  this  they  have  sacri- 
ficed some  of  their  own  people.  Pitt  said:  "Let  the  Amer- 
icans adopt  their  funding  system  and  go  into  their  bank- 
ing institutions,  and  their  boasted  independence  will  be 
a  mere  phantom."  We  have  seen  that  realized.  We  have 
seen  the  fulfillment  of  the  prophecies  of  Jackson's  farewell 
address.  And  unless  the  only  cure,  the  radical  cure,  be 
applied  forthwith  the  child  is  born  who  will  see  an  em- 
peror of  the  United  States  of  America. 

The  "monster"  was  not  destroyed  by  Jackson  and  Ben- 
ton. It  must  be  destroyed  now  or  this  republic's  days 
are  numbered.  When  men  who  steal  themselves  rich 
thereafter  form  alliances  by  marriage  with  foreign  aristo- 
crats, the  meaning  is  unmistakable  that  we  have  more 
Tory  blood  left  over  from  Revolutionary  times  than  we 
thought  we  had.  When  the  De  Castellanes  own  a  great 
railway  system  in  five  or  six  States,  and  the  DeHatz- 
feldts  one  that  crosses  the  continent,  and  have  judges  in 
their  pay  (as  my  grandsire  showed  that  Spain  had  them 
in  hers  in  the  Burr  conspiracy),  it  is  time  to  begin  at  the 
root  of  the  matter  and  cure  it  radically  while  ballots  will 
do  it.  In  another  half  century  the  De  Hatzfeldts  and  De 
Castellanes  will  not  allow  arms  in  the  hands  of  their  Amer- 
ican serfs,  or  ballots  either.  The  plan  of  destroying  our 
own  money  of  nature  and  borrowing  European  credit 
enabled  the  men  to  steal  the  property  that  enabled  them 
to  buy  the  foreign  alliances.    Cleveland's  test  of  prosper- 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  207 

ity  is  the  increasing  transfer  of  American  property  to 
Europeans,  accomplished  by  demonetization. 

But  has  Europe  the  money  to  spare?  Let  her  bound- 
less debts  and  limitless  paper  currency  answer.  We  do 
not  get  money  from  Europe  when  we  sell  bonds.  We 
get  a  credit;  we  draw  against  the  credit  and  Europe  pays 
it  in  goods.  In  my  review  of  the  message  of  the  Presi- 
dent to  the  conspiracy  session  of  Congress,  I  said: 

"How  does  it  come  that  Europe  gets  from  us  her  gold 
and  silver  and  food  and  yet  we  are  so  poor  as  to  be  always 
borrowing?  How  comes  it  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as 
'foreign  investors'?  Is  it  because  we  have  too  much 
money? 

"When  American  enterprises  place  their  bonds  in 
Europe  do  they  get  money  for  them?  No.  Europe  has 
no  such  amount  of  the  metals  to  spare.  The  undertakers 
of  the  enterprises  come  home  with  credits  in  Europe.  De- 
posited in  New  York  to  their  credit,  they  draw  as  the  enter- 
prise goes  on,  on  the  New  York  bank ;  it  sells  foreign  ex- 
change, and  the  exchange  is  paid  in  ship  loads  of  goods 
from  Europe.  Does  our  servant,  who  before  elections  is 
so  zealous  for  'tariff  reform,'  see  that  the  foreign  investor 
is  'alert'  enough  to  sell  us  goods  in  the  act  of  making 
investments  here?  Or,  is  it  because  he  sees  it  that  he  is 
careful  and  troubled  for  the  foreign  investor?  We  get 
goods,  not  money,  for  these  foreign  investments.  As  the 
President  is  working  for  the  foreign  countries  and  systems 
on  his  money  plank,  he  can  well  say  that  tariff  reform  can 
wait. 

"Let  us  use  the  metal  in  our  mountains,  and  let  the 
'alert  foreign  investor'  be  what  Mr.  Vanderbilt  said  'the 
American  public  be.'  Why  not?  Because  it  will  take 
the  world's  financial  centers  into  the  interior,  away  from 
New  York,  London  and  Frankfort,  to  the  Mississippi 


208  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

River  and  beyond.  Because  that  means  the  men  who 
swing  the  picks  will  decide  the  volume  of  money,  and  not 
the  bank  president,  with  pen  in  hand,  playing  the  role  of 
the  African  rainmaker.  Forever  prating  about  foreign- 
ers and  holding  them  up  to  us  as  examples  and  scare- 
crows, when  the  very  thing  that -we  are  aiming  at  is  to  use 
our  own  to  make  us  independent  of  them!" 

I  have  herein  shown  the  incongruity  between  free  trade 
profession  and  limited  coinage  practices,  and  did  so  more 
at  length  in  the  Arena.  (December,  1894.)  That  the  so- 
called  borrowing  abroad  is  in  fact  buying  abroad  makes 
it  equally  incongruous  for  protectionists  to  favor  the  de- 
monetization of  silver.  But  protectionists  who  are  restric- 
tionists  throughout  are  consistent  in  holding  to  the  prin- 
ciple of  the  power  of  the  government  to  injure  one  for  the 
benefit  of  another.  But  whilst  consistent  in  principle  they 
are  absurd  as  to  practical  results;  for  the  development  of 
our  mines  makes  work  for  factories  whilst  shutting  up 
the  mines  is  a  premium  to  foreign  factories.  How  is  their 
action  to  be  accounted  for?  Simply  by  the  fact  that  the 
national  banks  have  tlie  manufacturers  in  their  power. 

There  is  an  exceedingly  curious  coincidence  in  this 
case.  One  Jew  in  London  set  the  whole  matter  in  mo- 
tion. He  got  silver  demonetized  there,  and  the  fashion 
has  spread  to  all  the  Aryan  race.  There  is  a  prophecy  in 
the  Bible  that  a  Jew  shall  be  king  of  the  whole  world. 
It  is  realized.  But  the  prophecy  does  not  state  that  we 
shall  not  throw  ofif  his  authority.  The  part  played  by  the 
Jews  in  this  case  was  plainly  seen  in  the  pro-Jewish  anti- 
Russian  resolutions  of  the  Chicago  platform  and  in  send- 
ing a  Jew  in  a  high  official  capacity  to  Austria.  Cleve- 
land and  Whitney  have  "toted  fair"  with  Rothschild,  but 
they  have  betrayed  the  American  people.  There  is  an- 
other part  of  the  bargain  that  is  not  made  public:  that  if 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  209 

the  American  people  revolt  with  violence  too  great  for 
the  Whitney-Cleveland  navy  to  suppress,  Rothschild  will 
see  that  England  plays  the  same  part  that  Russia  did  for 
Austria  in  suppressing  the  Hungarian  revolt.  That  this 
is  a  conspiracy  is  shown  by  the  history  of  it  and  the 
methods  employed,  and  by  the  fact  that  Sherman,  a  born 
conspirator  and  a  thoroughly  practiced  one,  was  the  chief 
actor  in  it  in  America.  In  the  way  of  additional  proof 
I  quote  from  the  speech  of  Hon.  John  G.  Carlisle  of  Ken- 
tucky, in  Congress  in  1878:  "According  to  my  view  of 
the  subject,  'the  conspiracy  which  seems  to  have  been 
formed  here  and  in  Europe  to  destroy  by  legislation  and 
otherwise  from  three-sevenths  to  one-half  of  the  metallic 
money  of  the  world  is  the  most  gigantic  crime  of  this  or 
any  other  age."  There  can  be  little  doubt  that  it  is  a  part 
of  this  bargain  that  Cleveland  would  not  allow  the  annex- 
ation of  Hawaii  and  would  abandon  the  Monroe  doctrine. 
Neither  England  nor  the  Sugar  Trust  wanted  us  to  have 
Hawaii.  Jefferson  was  assailed  by  the  Tories  of  his  day 
for  buying  Louisiana.  He  asked  who  could  put  a  limit 
to  the  amount  of  territory  that  could  be  brought  together 
under  the  federation  system? 

Were  it  not  that  demonetization  is  the  greatest  crime 
against  human  civilization  ever  committed  by  any  pre- 
tending to  be  civilized;  were  it  not  the  most  extensive 
theft  ever  practiced,  there  would  be  something  to  cause  . 
a  laugh  in  Mr.  Wells'  gravity  in  explaining  that  the  finan- 
cial system  of  the  civilized  world  is  steered  by  certain 
''thoughtful  minds"  in  Europe.  (Forum,  October,  1893.) 
Beyond  any  doubt  they  are  thoughtful  enough.  The 
growth  of  republics  has  made  them  thoughtful ;  and  cer- 
tain of  deieat  with  the  sword  they  are  tryii^g  subtlety  and 
using  such  sappers  and  miners  as  Cleveland  and  Wells  to 
put  the  world  back  and  enslave  and  rob  the  people.  Tren- 


210  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

holm's  pretense  is  that  by  breaking  down  of  natural  and 
artificial  barriers  between  nations  it  is  all-important  that 
they  all  use  gold  alone  as  money  because  England  does  so 
and  it  is  the  only  international  settler  of  balances.  Start- 
ing from  the  latter  as  a  premise  the  logical  conclusion  is 
that  if  a  nation  must  pay  gold  to  settle  foreign  balances 
then  it  ought  to  have  either  an  idle  surplus  of  gold  on 
hand  always  ready  for  that  purpose  or  else  have  a  large 
stock  of  silver  on  hand  which  .will  not  go  abroad.  And 
the  latter  is  the  true  condition  for  every  country  to  be  in, 
but  we  are  only  concerned  with  our  own.  Others  would 
not  take  our  advice,  and  so  much  the  better  for  us  that 
they  would  not.  What  Trenholm  is  working  for  is  the 
old  familiar  "best  banking  system  we  ever  had"  (for  those 
who  run  it.)  Of  all  things  in  the  world  he  least  wants 
money  that  will  stay  at  home  and  most  wants  what  will 
leave,  and  leave  a  vacancy  to  be  filled  with  bank  notes. 
They  will  issue  the  bills,  their  "basis'^  will  be  gold  in  the 
vaults  and  in  the  ownership  of  his  two  masters,  Rothschild 
and  the  Bank  of  England.  When  the  bill  holders  run  on 
the  banks  they  will  have  the  choice  between  ostracism  by 
all  banks,  and  "Clearing  House  Certificates"  offered  them. 

He  says: 

"The  gold  standard  has  not  been  established  by  meas- 
ures designed  to  bring  about  that  result,  but  it  has  come 
into  use  under  the  influence  of  commercial  forces,  which 
in  their  origin,  nature  and  effect  were  altogether  inde- 
pendent of  any  reasoning  or  theorizing  as  to  the  material 
of  money  or  the  measurement  of  values. 

"The  adoption,  of  gold  as  the  sole  standard  of  value, 
wherever  these  changes  have  occurred,  is  just  as  natural, 
as  inevitable,  and  as  final  an  outcome  of  such  changes  as 
are  the  substitution  of  steam-power  for  horses  in  land 
transoortation  and  for  sails  in  navigation;  the  substitu- 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  211 

tlon  of  gas  and  electricity  for  whale  oil  and  candles  in 
illumination;  and  the  substitution  of  iron  and  steel  for 
wood  in  ship-building." 

That  is  a  fog  of  falsehood  behind  which  Rothschild  is 
working.  I  was  the  first  writer  to  trace  this  crime  to  the 
Rothschilds.  If  what  Trenholm  says  were  true  nobody 
would  be  more  appalled  at  it,  as  soon  as  he  knows  its  sig- 
nificance, than  Trenholm.  If  it  were  true  that  silver  has 
become  naturally  unfit  for  money  as  it  is  true  that  gold 
alone  is  naturally  unfit  for  the  common  medium  of  ex- 
change, which  is  money's  office,  then  we  would  have 
reached  the  stage  in  human  evolution  when  individualism 
must  be  left  behind  and  society  can  only  exist  as  a  social- 
ism or  in  barbarism.  Many  writers  say  that  division  of 
labor  is  only  possible  through  a  medium  of  exchange. 
Gold  cannot  be  such  medium,  because  it  will  not  ex- 
change for  small  as  well  as  great.  Where  there  is  not  a 
common  medium  of  exchange  there  is  likely  to  be  social- 
ism if  civilization  continue,  but  if  not  complete  socialism 
then  barbarism.  Under  gold-fiatism  we  are  in  the  latter 
condition.  It  is  none  the  less  barbarism  for  the  glare 
and  pohsh.  The  gold-fiatists  who  murder  sucklings  by 
slowly  starving  their  mothers  are  more  barbarous  than 
the  Mongols  who  quickly  ended  the  sufferings  of  mother 
and  child  with  the  sword.* 

*I  read  In  a  magazine  where  a  good  woman  wrote  of  a  poor 
aegro  woman  who  told  her  that  though  suffering  from  hunger 
when  awake  she  had  such  beautiful  dreams  asleep,  and  thought 
it  showed  a  Kind  Providence.  When  a  boy  on  the  plains  I 
think  we  were  always  hungry,  except  the  first  two  hours  after 
a  meal.  Lying  asleep  under  the  wagon  while  the  cook  fried 
the  middling,  and  half-baked  the  soda  biscuits  and  made  the 
black  coffee,  our  rations  for  three  months  at  a  time,  I  always 
dreamed  I  was  at  home  at  my  mother's  table  eating  broiled 
chicken,  ice  cream,  etc.  But  starving  people  to  death  through 
gold-fiatism  ought  to  be  stopped,  notwithstanding  the  beauti- 
ful dreams. 


212  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

He  says: 

"None  of  these  substitutions  occurred  suddenly.  They 
were  at  first  proposed  by  theorists,  and  were  long  con- 
tended for  in  argument;  but  in  all  cases  they  worked 
their  own  way  slowly,  by  experiment  at  obscure  initial 
points,  widely  apart,  and  are  estabhshed  now  only  be- 
cause they  are  the  best  things  of  their  several  kinds  that 
the  world  has  had  any  knowledge  of,  and  they  are  des- 
tined, no  doubt,  in  their  turn  to  be  supplanted  by  other 
things  now  unknown  and  undreamed  of. 

"The  communities  that  earliest  adopted  these  improve- 
ments have  longest  enjoyed  their  benefits,  and  have  there- 
by bcome  recognized  as  among  the  advanced  communi- 
ties of  the  world.  Those  that  have  not  yet  adopted  them 
are  laggards  in  civilization." 

A  sort  of  "natural  evolution"  that  was  "first  proposed 
by  theorists."    The  contrary  is  true. 

Compare  England  to-day — that  loathsome  land  of  rich, 
West  End  Sodomites  and  East  End  beggars — with  Ice- 
land, for  instance.  Nowhere  is  the  average  morality,  in- 
telligence and  comfort  as  high  as  in  Iceland,  where  the 
medium  of  exchange  is  vadmal,  a  coarse  woolen  cloth. 
Note  the  thorough  dishonesty  of  speaking  as  if  everybody 
in  England  "enjoyed  the  benefits"  of  the  accumulation  of 
the  plunder  that  England  has  gathered  peacefully  from  all 
the  world — mainly  by  the  aid  of  traitors  in  other  countries 
who  act  as  her  agents,  as  Trenholm  is  doing  her  work  in 
ours. 

There  could  be  nothing  more  suicidal  than  for  capital" 
to  teach,  in  a  universal  suffrage  nation,  that  law  makes 
money.  But  those  capitalists  who  are  members  of  this 
conspiracy  are,  most  of  them,  prepared  to  sacrifice  uni- 
versal suffrage  for  the  liberty  of  plundering,  and  even 
g-ive  up  the  republican  form  of  government  in  name. 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  213 

having  already  temporarily  given  it  up  in  fact  to  a  Dic- 
tator-President. 

The  whole  effort  of  Wells,  Trenholm,  Bayard'  and  the 
rest  of  the  royalist  conspirators  is  to  force  a  permanent 
financial  dependence  of  this  country  upon  England,  and 
when  they  think  that  is  done  beyond  our  power  to  change 
they  will  follow  it  up  with  the  argument  that  as  we  are 
helplessly  dependent  on  England  in  business,  which  is 
the  substance  of  life,  we  ought  to  go  back  into  political 
connection  and  dependence,  which,  they  will  then  tell  us, 
is  merely  the  shadow. 

So  deeply  are  they  infected  with  Anglo-mania  that  they 
cannot  answer  the  patriotic  Americans  except  with  the 
English  slang — ''jingoism." 

Trenholm  says: 

"In  various  parts  of  the  world  money  is  of  different 
substances  and  forms;  but  what  gives  to  every  form  of 
money  all  the  force  it  has,  what  alone  can  confer  upon 
anything  the  power  to  pass  unquestioned  from  hand  to 
hand,  exchanging  and  measuring  values,  is  the  confidence 
and  consent  of  the  people  among  whom  it  circulates. 
Except  for  the  settlement  of  contracts,  the  payment  of 
debts,  and  the  discharge  of  public  dues,  the  power  of  the 
government  to  prescribe  a  currency  is  absolutely  limited 
by  the  acquiescence  of  the  people,  and  stability  in  the 
purchasing  power  of  such  currency  depends  from  day  to 
day  upon  the  continuance  of  that  acquiescence." 

It  would  be  hard  for  him  to  condemn  himself  in  stronger 
terms.  He  belongs  to  the  few  trying  to  stop  the  clamor 
of  the  many  who  demand  a  return  to  the  use  of  the 
ancient  Aryan  money.  Nowhere  in  Europe  did  the 
"people"  ask  for  its  demonetization.  For  Germany  he 
and  Wells  both  take  Bismarck  as  their  great  authority, 
who  would  no  more  leave  it  to  "the  people"  to  decide 


214  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

on  keeping  the  old  natural  system  or  changing  to  the  new 
gold-fiat  system  than  he  would  leave  it  to  the  dogs  to 
settle.  Bismarck  knows  no  more  than  an  idiot  about  it, 
nor  does  he  care.  Like  other  tyrants,  he  is  solely  taken  up 
with  the  idea  on  a  scale  of  littleness  that  Alexander, 
Caeser  and  many  another  failed  at  on  a  large  scale — 
conquering  the  world  by  force.  To  forward  his  plans  of 
conquest  he  had  to  make  terms  with  the  Jew  money- 
lenders of  Germany.  With  one  of  these,  Bleichroeder 
of  Berlin,  he  made  terms  by  which  the  latter  and  his 
associates  helped  France  to  pay  her  war-fine  before  due; 
and  by  which  the  Roumanian  system  of  railways  was  com- 
pleted and  connected  with  the  Austrian  and  German 
systems  so  they  could  be  used  against  Russia  in  case  of 
war.  Undoubtedly  the  terms  that  Bleichroeder  and 
associates  demanded  was  the  demonetization  of  silver. 
Bleichroeder  was  also  made  a  German  baron,  the  only 
Jew  ever  made  one,  it  is  said.  This  information  came  to 
me  immediately  from  an  American  diplomat  in  Europe, 
who  had  as  good  opportunity  of  knowing  as  any  American 
could  have.  Bleichroeder's  son  is  a  partner  in  one  of  the 
Jew  banking  houses  of  New  York,  conspicuous  for  ship- 
ping gold  abroad  just  at  the  time  when  it  suited  Cleve- 
land to  have  it  to  point  to  as  an  alarming  fact  making 
legislation  against  constitutional  coinage  imperative. 
Their  house  is  one  of  the  strongest,  and  they  are  here  to 
make  money,  and  are  doing  it.  And  they  have  more  in- 
fluence with  the  Cleveland  administration  than  ten  millions 
of  voters  with  the  blood  of  the  fathers  of  this  republic  in 
their  veins  and  their  patriotism  in  their  hearts.  This 
banking  house,  with  others  of  the  kind  in  New  York, 
prove  that  we  can  no  more  safely  allow  foreign  bankers  to 
locate  and  do  business  here  than  we  can  allow  England 
and  Germany  to  send  an  army  of  half  a  million  men  here 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  215 

under  the  guise  of  a  friendly  contest  in  drilling.  This  is 
one  of  the  bulwarks  of  American  liberty  that  must  be 
attended  to  if  we  are  to  longer  be  a  republic. 

Whilst  the  national  banking  system  is  theft  and  the 
demonetization  of  silver  was  only  possible  through  its 
influence  it  does  not  follow  that  every  man  engaged  in  it 
is  a  thief.  All  slavery  is  theft,  but  every  slaveholder  was 
not  for  that  reason  on  a  footing  with  thieves.  It  is  motive 
that'  makes  crime,  I  am  an  owner  of  national  bank 
stocks.  It  is  almost  impossible  for  every  one  to  prevent 
becoming  interested  in  it  in  the  course  of  business,  or  of 
assisting  it.  When  the  other  form  of  slavery  was  in 
existence  even  the  Abolitionists  were  connected  with  it 
indirectly  as  beneficiaries  of  it. 

It  is  not  exactly  a  pleasant  thought  to  me  that  my 
father,  kind-hearted,  brave  and  conscientious,  traded  an 
unruly  slave  woman  for  a  pair  of  mules  more  easy  to 
manage.  In  wondering  now  that  theology  and  the 
"Ham  theory"  made  the  world  hold  to  slavery  to  so  late 
a  day,  it  is  not  pleasant  to  think  that  the  sons  of  old 
Norsemen  in  our  Southern  states,  almost  matchless  in 
valor,  enslaved  down  to  so  late  a  day  the  "Blue  Men  from 
Serkland"  whom  their  ancestors  butchered  millenniums 
ago.  The  moral  is  to  men  in  our  Northern  states:  You  are 
later  in  the  barbarism  of  slavery  than  we  were ;  get  out  of 
it  quickly  for  your  children's  sakes. 

The  national  banking  system  offered  a  premium  to  the 
debasement  of  the  credit  of  the  United  States  by  making 
it  to  the  interest  of  those  wanting  bonds  to  bank  on 
to  "bear"  the  price.  It  made  it  to  their  interest  to  try  to 
perpetuate  the  public  debt,  and  they  have  succeeded  in 
making  the  people  pay  certainly  double  what  there  was 
any  need  of  paying;  they  have  in  that  way  robbed  the 
people  of  several  times  as  much  as  the  whole  volume  of 


2ie  I'HE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

bank  notes.  Those  who  lend  the  notes  get  an  average  of 
eight  per  cent  or  more,  and  this  added  to  the  interest  on 
the  bonds  makes  the  currency  cost  the  country  an  average 
of  over  12  per  cent.  The  entire  economic  upheaval  in  this 
country,  the  creation  of  a  panic  by  the  bankers,  the  extra 
session  of  Congress,  and  even  some  of  the  foreign  war 
scares  have  had  for  their  aim  the  increase  of  the  national 
debt  so  as  to  furnish  bonds  to  national  banks  to  bank  on. 
It  is  a  crime  that  includes  every  crime,  and  has  caused 
every  crime  ^nown  to  man.  Yet  it  is  called  "the  best 
banking  system  we  have  ever  had."  Men  who  never  tire 
of  praising  the  security  of  the  notes  do  not  notice  that  the 
greater  part  of  the  notes  is  entrusted  to  other  than  national 
banks  on  deposit.  It  is  the  worst  system  from  a  financial 
point  of  view,  that  we  ever  had ;  and,  claimed  to  have  been 
founded  for  the  purpose  of  keeping  us  from  breaking  into 
two  parts,  its  leading  men  are  far  advanced  in  the  plot  to 
destroy  a  republican  form  of  government  in  both  parts. 
The  open  confession  of  Cleveland,  Trenholm,  Wells,  At- 
kinson and  the  leading  bankers  of  New  York  that  they 
aim  at  the  overthrow  of  republican  institutions  would  add 
nothing  to  the  strength  of  my  belief  that  they  do. 

Let  those  who  imagine  that  this  is  the  effect  of  anger 
or  passion  and  not  the  cool  judgment  of  an  American 
who  comes  entirely  of  Colonial  and  Revolutionary  stock 
ask  themselves  how  long  would  it  take  the  Vanderbilts, 
Depews,  Goulds,  Huntingtons,  et  al.  to  decide  whether 
farmers  and  laborers  and  mechanics,  being  the  majority, 
shall  make  the  laws ;  or  whether  we  have  a  king  who  will 
let  them  have  their  own  way.  It  would  not  take  them  any 
time.     They  have  already  decided. 

If  these  men  and  Wells,  Trenholm,  Cleveland  and  the 
rest  were  merely  groping  in  the  darkness  of  ignorance 
it  would  be  unpardonable  to  assail  them  as  bitterly  as  the 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  217 

Other  Abolitionists  assailed  the  other  pro-slavery  men. 
But  they  are  preaching  the  gospel  of  grab,  solely  moved 
thereto  by  avarice.  They  are  enemies  of  a  popular  form 
of  government,  because  it  stands  in  the  way  of  satisfying 
their  greed. 

Here  belongs  a  historical  reference  that  is  personal  in 
some  degree.  My  maternal  grandsire  edited  the  "West- 
em  World,"  the  second  paper  in  Kentucky,  at  Frankfort. 
He  came  from  Virginia  to  do  so,  to  expose  Burr's  con- 
spiracy to  the  community  in  which  the  latter  had  ingra- 
tiated himself.  Though  of  a  Colonial  Virginian  family, 
he  was  unknown  in  Kentucky  and  poor.  Except  Humph- 
rey Marshall  and  the  gallant  Major  Joseph  H.  Daveiss, 
he  had  no  powerful  friends,  even  Clay,  among  others, 
being  at  first,  Burr's  friend.  Every  week  he  gave  them  a 
fierce  broadside.  He  was  considered  an  upstart,  an  im- 
pertinent young  "crank,"  to  assail  a  man  of  Burr's  stand- 
ing with  such  a  charge.  Then  his  words  began  to  tell, 
and  his  enemies  tried  to  rid  thmselves  of  him  by  violence; 
challenges  to  fight  duels  piling  up  until  he  had  to  file 
them  and  make  the  senders  take  their  turns  (so  Jefferson 
Davis  told  me).  He  was  shot  and  stabbed,  brought  to 
death's  door  with  wounds,  nursed  back  to  life  by  his  strip- 
ling school-girl  wife,  wedded  at  his  supposed  death-bed, 
and  undaunted  as  the  fathers  from  whom  he  said  his 
middle  name  came,  who  in  France  centuries  before 
answered  every  summons  to  surrender  simply,  "Je  me 
nomme  Mont  fort,"  Hved  to  see  the  overthrow  of  his  and 
the  republic's  enemies,  and  to  have  the  friendship  and 
gratitude  of  Henry  Clay  for  life. 

The  hatred  of  his  enemies  has  followed  him  down  to 
this  day,  when  a  historian*  casts  slurs  at  him  because  at 

♦Adams*  "Jefferson's  Second  Term." 


^U  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHV. 

Burr's  trial  he  knew  no  facts  that  would  prove  Burr's 
treason.  It  was  well  that  he  did  not  wait  for  absolute 
knowledge.  Besides  that  he  was  at  death's  door  from 
wounds. 

The  time  has  come  when  the  republic  is  far  more 
seriously  threatened  than  ever  before,  not  alone  in  its 
geographical  integrity,  but  in  the  basis  of  the  liberties  of 
its  people;  and  it  is  fitting  that  the  children  of  faithful 
sentinels  of  the  past  seeing  the  danger  to-day  give  loud 
alarm.  It  is  not  wise  to  wait  for  that  absolute  knowledge 
that  we  would  have  if  we  had  all  the  oral  and  written  com- 
munications that  have  passed  between  these  conspirators. 

But  there  is  too  much  of  the  blood  and  nature  of  the 
men  who  wrested  America  from  England  and  from 
monarchy  still  in  our  people  to  let  these  royalists  and 
Tories  sell  us  back  to  either,  if  they  know  what  is  meant. 

Whoever  will  take  the  trouble  to  study  the  problem  will 
learn  that  there  was  originally  in  Europe  and  the  British 
Isleo  a  non-Aryan  race.  The  Aryans  came  on,  wave  after 
wave,  from  their  home  in  Asia.  No  doubt  they  came 
first  and  generally  in  war  parties,  without  women  or 
with  few  women.  The  non-Aryan  race  was  made  up  of 
men  of  shorter  stature  and  the  larger  and  stronger  men 
of  the  Aryan  race  beat  them  in  the  hand-to-hand  fighting 
of  the  day.  They  killed  or  enslaved  the  men  and  intermar- 
ried with  the  women.  The  offspring  were  thus  smaller 
and  less  able  warriors  than  the  pure  Aryans,  and  when 
another  wave  of  them  came  over  Europe  they  had  no 
knowledge  of  their  kinship,  and  the  pure  Aryans  beat  their 
half-breed  kin  and  killed  or  enslaved  the  men  and  bred 
with  the  women.  We  saw  something  like  this  in  the  case 
of  the  Northmen  settling  in  Normandy  in  historical  times. 
The  purest  blooded  Aryans  in  England  were  those  who 
with  the  restlessness  of  their  race  went  to  America,  whilst 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY  21d 

the  present  population  of  England  is  the  nearest  non- 
Aryan,  in  all  probability,  of  any  of  the  foremost  Aryan 
nationalities.  The  proof  of  this  is  partly  found  in  the 
prevalence  of  the  nameless  vice  among  the  English  of  the 
higher  classes,  a  vice  unknown  to  the  Aryans,  or  when 
known,  so  detestable  that  one  wrongfully  accused  of  it 
could  slay  his  accuser  on  the  spot.  The  non- Aryan 
superstitions  found  among  the  uneducated  in  England  as 
brought  out  by  the  study  of  folk-lore,  is  another  proof. 
The  stock  of  people  that  remained  in  Skandinavia  and 
Russia,  and  those  who  came  first  to  America  are  thus  the 
purest  of  the  old  stock,  and  that  accounts  for  the  fact 
that  America  and  Russia  are  friends.  Of  the  stock  that 
came  to  America  the  purest  Aryans  were  those  who  settled 
Virginia  and  the  Carolinas,  and  hence  it  is  that  from  the 
Southern  states  and  from  the  Western  states  that  are 
peopled  with  a  mixture  of  the  Southern  population  and 
others  we  had  the  best  fighting  material  in  the  Civil  War. 
The  people  of  our  northeast,  where  the  Aryan  blood  is  the 
weakest,  are  they  who  are  in  the  Anglo-Tory  scheme  for 
making  us  a  part  of  a  Greater  Britain.  The  rest  of  the 
country  to-day  would  spring  to  arms  with  Russia  to 
sweep  the  murderous  Turanian  Turks  from  the  earth 
and  free  our  Aryan  kin  the  Armenians.  But  England 
lives  by  the  grace  of  Jewish  money-lenders;  Jews  and 
Turks  like  each  other  better  than  either  like  the  Aryan, 
hence  the  nearly  non-Aryan  English  of  to-day  look  on  un- 
moved at  Armenian  extermination  whilst  if  we  would  but 
say  the  word  Aryan  Russia  would  join  us  in  kicking  the 
Turk  out  of  Asia,  the  old  Aryan  home,  and  English  roy- 
alty out  of  America  at  one  job. 

The  American  people  have  thought  the  idea  so  pre- 
posterous that  they  have  been  content  to  take  no  notice 
of  the  plot  between  our  Anglo-maniacs  and  the  English 


220  THE  FiNAKCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

royalists  beyond  reading-  jokes  about  buying  high-priced 
titled  loafers  for  sons-in-law.  Whoever  will  take  the  trou- 
ble to  look  at  the  matter  seriously  will  see  the  plot  against 
the  republic  working  right  under  his  own  nose.  Here  is 
a  little  light  on  the  subject: 

JOHN  BULL. 


Would  Like  for  Uncle  Sam  to 
Back  Him  Up 


In  Oriental  Affairs,  and  He 
In  Turn 


Will  Keep  Hands  Off  the  American 
Continent. 


Depew's  Interesting  Talk  on 
Home  Rule,  Etc. 


'The  statesmen  of  both  parties  would  like  a  sort  of 
offensive  and  defensive  alliance  with  us.  They  want 
our  help  in  China  and  in  Japan,  and  the  difficulties  arising 
out  of  Russian,  German  and  French  hostility  aggressive- 
ness in  the  East,  and  would  gladly  bundle  all  American 
matters  into  our  hands  in  exchange  for  such  an  under- 
standing.'' 


ttlE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  221 

That  is  part  of  an  interview  of  the  month  of  September, 
1895,  with  the  Vanderbilt*  lackey,  Chauncey  Depew,  one 
of  the  foremost  of  the  whole  lot  of  our  Northeastern 
Tories.    We  would  be  England's  Western  overseer. 

♦There  is  no  such  name  as  Vanderbilt.  It  is  originally 
Dutch,  van  der  velde,  meaning  "of  the  field,"  and  was  originally- 
given  to  a  slave  in  Europe  who  was  of  same  given  name  that 
was  borne  by  another  serf,  and  they  were  told  the  one  from 
the  other  by  adding  to  their  names  van  der  velde,  or  van  den 
hof,  of  the  field  or  of  the  barnyard;  according  as  they  worked 
in  the  one  place  or  the  other.  Their  descendants  in  America 
who  could  not  write  got  the  name  changed  to  Vanderbilt.  The 
creepers  after  English  royalty  and  "nobility"  in  this  country 
are  always  such  wealth-polished  canaille. 


^2t  I'HE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


CHAPTER  X. 

THE  APPLIED  SCIENCE  OF  MONEY.     THE  EFFECT  OF 
ACTING  ON  THESE  PRINCIPLES. 

In  the  Forum  of  April,  1895,  Edward  Atkinson  says: 
"Any  attack  upon  the  credit  of  the  United  States  tending 
to  the  debasement  of  the  unit  of  value  is  dangerous." 
The  gold-basis,  bank-paper  fiatists  repeat  "no  debasement 
of  the  unit  of  value,"  as  Buddhists  repeat,  "om  mani  padme 
haun,"  not  knowing  just  what  it  means  or  whether  it 
means  anything,  but  confident  that  it  is  "mighty  to  save." 
Let  us  see  what  ideas  are  concealed  in  his  misty  sentence. 
By  "unit  of  value"  he  only  expresses  "medium  of  ex- 
change." By  "debasement"  he  intends  to  say  the  change 
to  a  coin  (as  the  unit  of  money),  whose  bullion  value  is  not 
as  great  as  its  coin  value.  As  he  refers  to  silver  he  is  ex- 
actly in  the  mental  position  that  the  Romans  and  Celts,  or 
the  Greeks  and  barbarians  held  towards  the  prisoners  they 
made  slaves;  they  deprived  them  of  freedom  and  despised 
them  for  being  slaves.  He  and  his  party  have  violently 
and  fraudulently  kept  a  part  of  the  mass  of  silver  out  of  its 
place  as  money,  and  he  calls  the  attempt  to  put  it  back  in 
its  natural  place  "debasing  the  unit  of  value,"  just  as  those 
masters  felt  debased  at  the  idea  of  putting  slaves  on  a 
plane  of  equal  rights  with  themselves. 

"Debase"  only  means  to  lower.  The  meaning  to  be 
expressed  where  he  says  "debase  the  unit  of  value,"  or. 


I 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  223 

as  we  say,  "what  he  is  driving  at"  is  this:  "You  are  try- 
ing to  make  the  gold  coin  buy  less;  you  are  going  to 
debase  the  power  of  the  five  per  cent  gold  coupon  to  five 
per  cent,  and  no  longer  leave  it  what  demonetization  has 
made  it — a  ten  per  cent  coupon  as  measured  by  com- 
modities." If  debt-holders  can  double  the  buying  power  of 
their  coupons — can  make  them  buy  twice  as  much  cotton, 
wheat,  pork  and  beef  as  when  the  producers  of  cotton, 
wheat,  pork  and  beef  gave  the  bonds — by  legislation,  and 
then  keep  their  victims  from  reversing  the  legislation 
and  lowering  the  buying  power  of  the  unit  of  money  to 
what  it  was  when  they  made  the  bonds — or,  as  Mr.  Atkin- 
son calls  it,  "debasing  the  unit  of  value" — it  would  be  a 
large  return  for  the  investment  made  in  scattering  such 
Atkinson  literature  over  the  land. 

But  viewed  in  another  light  the  extra  five  per  cen. 
gained  thereby  over  what  is  due  them  is  the  dearest  money 
or  property  that  man  ever  gets :  for  they  give  what  is  worth 
more  than  money;  they  give  morals.  Those  informed  on 
the  subject  can  only  take  the  position  that  Mr.  Atkinson 
does  in  the  Forum,  April,  1895,  and  that  the  President 
does  in  his  letter  to  the  Chicago  Gold-Basis  Fiatists'  Com- 
mittee, by  debasing  the  standard  of  morality. 

And  no  possible  loss  by  actual  debasement  of  the  money 
of  the  country  could  be  as  great  or  calamitous  as  that. 

Let  us  face  what  Atkinson  pretends  to  fear,  and  what  the 
President  warns  against:  silver  monometallism.  What 
would  be  the  situation  in  the  matter  of  international  trade 
between  ourselves  and  that  "highly-civilized"  England 
that  so  fascinates  Messrs.  Cleveland,  Atkinson,  Wells; 
and  so  disgusts  a  decent  Danish  lady  who  is  the 
second  of  her  sex  in  position  to  the  sovereign 
only    that    she    formally    refuses   to    associate   with    its 


224  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

''best  society,"  the  exact  characterization  of  whose 
members  cannot  be  made  in  writings  intended  for 
the  decent?  Here  is  all  that  would  happen:  We 
would  make  out  our  bills  in  our  money,  and  they  in  theirs, 
and  the  values  would  be  compared.  A  shipload  of  cotton 
on  reaching  Liverpool  would  be  sold  at  so  many  pence  a 
pound.  A  cargo  of  West  of  England  cloth  coming  back 
would  be  sold  in  New  York  at  so  much  a  bolt  in  dollars. 
The  gold  pounds  in  one  bill  would  be  compared  to  the 
silver  dollar  in  the  other.  But  the  purchasing  price  of  the 
silver  dollar  would  not  be  down  to  the  present  bullion 
price  of  silver,  nor  would  the  selling  price  of  cotton  ex- 
pressed in  dollars  be  down  to  what  it  is  now.  The  unit  of 
money  (which  Atkinson  calls  the  "unit  of  value")  would 
buy  about  half  as  much  of  silver  bullion  and  cotton  as  now 
and  so  would  the  coupon  and  the  West  of  England  cloth 
buy  about  half  as  much  silver  bullion  and  cotton  as  now. 
But  is  that  "debasing"  the  "unit  of  value"  as  he  names  it? 
Is  that  lowering  the  money  in  any  sense?  If  so, 
in  what  sense?  If  it  lowers  its  buying  power,  it 
raises  the  buying  power  of  all  our  products,  includ- 
ing silver  bullion.  It  is  a  clear  gain  to  us  selling 
and  no  loss  buying.  It  "debases"  gold  only  as  a  king  is 
debased  who  is  deprived  of  usurped  power  and  put  on  a 
level  with  other  nien.  But  that  is  a  moral  elevation,  not 
debasement.  Debt-holders  who  are  now  stealing  from 
producers,  and  whose  theft  Atkinson  is  defending,  will 
not  be  debased ;  they  will  be  elevated  by  consenting  to  the 
so-called  "debasement,"  the  lowering  of  the  purchasing 
power  of  gold.  It  will  be  a  case  in  which  "he  that  humbleth 
himself  shall  be  exalted."  It  is  said  that  women  in  the 
South,  who  had  never  been  dressed  or  undressed  in  their 
lives  except  by  slave  maids,  had  to  get  out  and  plough  in 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  225 

the  fields  after  the  war.  But  the  change  from  Uving  by  the 
labor  of  slaves  to  laboring  for  oneself  is  a  rise,  not  a  de- 
basement.* 

We  are  not  left  to  the  prophecies  of  the  prophets  Cleve- 
land, Atkinson  and  the  rest  of  the  school  of  prophets  to 
know  what  the  effect  of  silver  monometallism  would  be 
in  the  way  of  creating  advantages  or  disadvantages  for 
one  or  the  other  nation  in  international  trade  settlements. 
In  the  long-estabHshed  trade  relations  between  China,  a 
silver  country,  and  England,  a  gold  country,  the  adjust- 
ment was  made  and  each  nation's  money  of  account  trans- 
lated into  the  other's  money  of  account  just  as  each  set  of 
invoices  in  English  is  translated  into-Chinese,  and  vice 
versa. 

The  only  possible  point  that  gold-basis  fiatism  can 
pretend  to  make  is  that  the  value  of  silver  is  unsteady. 
But  so  far  as  it  is,  it  was  made  so  by  their  wrong-doing; 
so  they  are  estopped  from  pleading  that.  And  compared 
with  the  other  commodities  it  is  steadier  than  gold. 

But  there  will  be  no  silver  monometalism.  Our  ex- 
perience will  be  repeated ;  by  restoring  silver  to  its  place 
and  destroying  paper  currency  we  will  gain  gold  more  than 
we  did  under  the  awkward  and  unconstitutional  Silver 
Purchase  Act,  that  was  intended  to  purchase  the  votes 
of  certain  States  and  keep  them  from  bolting  the  Repub- 
lican party. 

*  Atkinson's  greatest  claim  upon  the  world's  notice  rests 
upon  the  invention  of  a  stove  that  solved  the  problem  of  cook- 
ing a  piece  of  steer  beef  from  right  up  under  the  yoke  into 
as  tender,  succulent  and  toothsome  a  bit  as  the  choicest  cut 
from  the  sirloin  of  a  young  cow.  There  was  great  joy  over  the 
invention;  it  was  thought  he  would  teach  one  class  from  it, 
"you  need  no  longer  rob  producers  and  laborers  under  forms  of 
law,  now  that  neck  is  as  good  as  loin,"  but  alas!  the  lesson 
seems  to  be  to  the  producers  and  laborers  and  is,  "you  can 
stand  more  plundering  than  you  could  before,  thanks  to  my 
stove," 


226  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

The  clearing-house  organs  repeat  parrot-like  that  re- 
monetization  at  i6  to  i  means  silver  monometallism,  but 
when  asked  for  the  proof  they  do  as  a  parrot  would  if 
asked  for  reasons. 

When  the  natural  ratio  is  protected — when  men  are 
protected  in  their  natural  right  to  use  both  metals — neither 
metal  can  go  above  the  other  in  value:  creditors  cannot 
make  debtors  bid  more  than  par  for  either  metal,  quoted 
in  the  other.  But  we  cannot  have  all  the  channels  of  cir- 
culation ^lled  with  the  two  metals  if  we  have  them  all 
filled  with  paper.  The  paper  will  drive  out  the  coin.  The 
Bank  of  the  United  States  used  to  buy  the  coin,  Spanish 
and  Mexican  dollars,  and  bring  them  here,  just  as  the 
arch-enemy  of  liberty  and  agent  of  monarchy  is  now  buy- 
ing gold,  but  the  silver  then  ran  out  of  the  country  like 
water  poured  into  a  vessel  already  full  of  spirits,  as  the  gold 
does  now. 

Look  at  this  terrible  picture  conjured  up  "to  fright  the 
souls  of  fearful  adversaries"  by  Trenholrh  on  page  9  of 
(Long  Island)  "Sound  Currency,"  vol.  2,  No.  7,  of  which 
the  substance  is  this: 

'^Consider  the  effect  of  discrediting  the  government  of 
the  United  States.  Let  the  government  lose  its  credit 
with  the  bankers,  can  it  be  retained  among  the  people?" 

Horatio  Seymour,  a  patriot,  said  that  the  loss  of  the 
milk  product  of  New  York  state  would  be  a  greater  loss 
than  the  failure  of  every  bank  in  New  York  City  all  at 
once.  Compare  the  value  of  the  yearly  product  of  the 
whole  union,  outside  of  gold  and  silver,  with  the  total 
volume  of  money,  and  how  insignificant! 

Then  we  may  answer  him:  "Consider  how  quickly  a 
great  and  continued  robbery  of  the  producers  will  amount 
to  more  than  all  the  capital  of  all  the  bankers  in  the  world !" 
Trenholm  well  knows,  as  does  every  banker,  that  bank- 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  227 

ers  make  their  money  more  out  of  deposits  than  out  of 
their  own  capital.  If  this  government  lives  by  the  grace  of 
bankers  then  may  the  people  say:  "Now  God  have  mercy 
on  our  souls  for  our  bodies  are  Rothschild's.''  What  more 
foul,  nauseating  stuff  and  nonsense  and  wilful  falsehood 
in  the  face  of  fact  than  to  say  that  the  confidence  of  the 
people  in  their  government  depends  on  the  confidence 
of  bankers  in  it !  The  people  of  the  North  gave  their  own 
bodies  for  the  government  when  bankers'  confidence  in 
it  was  at  forty  cents  on  the  dollar  as  shown  by  the  price  of 
its  paper.  The  people  of  the  South  gave  theirs  when  the 
bankers'  confidence  in  it  was  gone.  They  have  never  re- 
gretted their  return  into  the  Union  since  Grant's  bayonet 
rule  ended  until  Cleveland's  demonstration  that  he  thinks 
they  exist  to  support  "alert  foreign  investors." 

Atkinson's  paper  in  the  Forum,  April,  1895,  is  a  weari- 
some reiteration  of  the  same  errors  that  Wells  printed  in 
the  Forum,  October,  1893,  to  prave  that  the  going  apart 
of  gold  and  the  mass  of  products  is  not  caused  by  de- 
monetization of  silver  but  is  "the  work  of  the  engineer, 
the  inventor,  and  the  discoverer  of  new  processes  in  all 
the  arts."  I  answered  it  in  the  Arena,  December,  1894. 
But  demonstration  daunts  not  greed.  They  say  that  de- 
monetization did  not  shrink,  but  remonetization  would 
inflate.  Improved  processes,  the  engineer,  the  inventor, 
were  making  the  medium  of  exchange  fairly  keep  pace 
with  the  other  products  in  volume  or  abundance,  and 
thereupon  fiat  stepped  in  and  stopped  it.  Gold-basis  fiat- 
ism,  has  taken  the  job  (of  furnishing  the  medium  of  ex- 
change) out  of  the  hands  of  labor  and  brains  and  turned 
it  over  to  greed  in  the  persons  of  a  bank  president  and 
cashier,  who  by  signing  their  names  make  more  of  the 
stolen  medium  of  exchange  in  a  day  than  labor  and  brains 
could  get  of  the  honest  and  natural  medium  in  a  year. 


228  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

Labor  and  brains  producing  the  money  metal  are  bidden 
to  try  something  else  as  a  vocation  and  are  allowed  the 
privilege  of  paying  taxes  to  keep  up  the  paper  currency 
that  has  robbed  them  of  their  rights.  Nothing  could  be 
as  serious  an  "attack  on  the  credit  of  the  United  States" 
as  the  success  of  Atkinson  in  getting  his  policy  adopted 
for  all  time  would  be,  for  it  would  proclaim  that  this 
people  has  succumbed  to  Falsehood  playing  the  role  of 
"King-maker"  to  Theft. 

Under  the  power  of  Congress  to  levy  taxes  we  can 
pay  the  ordinary  expenses  of  the  government  generally. 
(The  only  reason  we  are  selling  bonds  now  is  that  enemies 
of  the  government  are  administering  its  affairs.)  Hence 
the  one  great  and  most  important  use  of  keeping  up  a  high 
credit  for  this  government  is  that  it  may  be  able  to  bor- 
row money  in  case  of  war.  Atkinson,  Trenholm  and 
Cleveland  in  their  pretended  anxiety  to  avoid  injuring  the 
public  credit  are  plotting  to  put  us  in  a  position  where 
We  will  have  but  one  place  in  the  world  where  we  can 
sell  the  public  credit  and  raise  money  thereby  in  case  of 
war.  That  place  is  with  the  European  money  lenders,  the 
allies  of  our  enemies.  France  is  independent  of  them, 
partly  because  her  people  are  the  thriftiest  and  best  en- 
dowed for  the  industrial  struggle  for  existence  of  almost 
any  in  the  world,  and  partly  because  their  government 
by  keeping  to  the  large  use  of  silver  enables  them  to  use 
their  power  for  thrift.  In  case  of  foreign  war,  even  if  we 
were  a  silver  monometallist  nation,  we  could  sell  our 
public  credit  among  our  own  people;  we  need  neither 
depend  on  banks  for  their  notes  nor  on  the  Rothschilds 
for  their  gold.  Silver  would  answen  all  purposes  at  home ; 
products,  especially  cotton,  answer  as  well  as  gold  for 
foreign  payments.  But  if  we  are  a  gold-fiat  nation  we 
must  make  terms  with  the   European   owners   of  the 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  229 

world's  stock  of  gold  when  we  want  to  borrow.  And  the 
one  foreign  war  of  the  future,  the  one  that  England's 
selfish,  grasping  and  perfidious  disposition  is  certain  to 
force  on  us  in  the  future  and  that  will  overthrow  the  power 
of  one  or  the  other  nation  forever,  will  be  one  in  which 
the  only  holders  of  enough  gold  for  our  needs  will  be  the 
friends  of  our  enemy  and  the  enemy  of  ourselves  and  of 
all  republics.  It  is  so  clear  that  by  following  the  example 
of  the  gold  monometalHst  nations  we  will,  like  them,  be 
at  the  mercy  of  the  great  European  money  lenders  who 
now  easily  control  the  world's  stock  of  gold,  and  that  the 
money  lenders  being  beholden  to  the  monarchies  for  pro- 
tection are  against  all  republics,  that  all  who  understand 
the  case  must  necessarily  be  at  heart  traitors  to  this  repub- 
lic. This  is  in  any  view  of  the  case  a  regrettable  and  a 
dangerous  state  of  facts ;  especially  mortifying  to  publish 
to  the  world.    But  it  is  always  best  to  face  facts. 

Trenholm  says: 

"We  know  what  the  country  has  gained  under  the  gold 
standard  since  1879.  No  one  can  compute  what  we  might 
have  lost  if  we  had  been  during  the  same  period  on  the 
monetary  plane  of  India,  Mexico  and  China,  with  all  in- 
dustrial Europe  raised  to  the  higher  level  of  the  gold 
standard,  and  kept  there  by  the  weight  of  our  silver  cir- 
culation bearing  down  the  other  end  of  the  lever." 

As  English  agents  procured  the  demonetization  of  sil- 
ver here  how  grateful  we  ought  to  be  to  England  for  sav- 
ing us  from  such  loss !  How  truly  self-sacrificing  of  Eng- 
land to  get  us  on  a  plane  of  ability  to  compete  with  her- 
self! 

A  great  battle  of  arguments  is  going  on  now  to  decide 
whether  the  demonetization  of  silver  caused  the  fall  in 
the  prices  of  other  commodities.  I  treated  this  fully  in  the 
Arena  Magazine,  December,  1894.    ^^^  i^  i^  were  proved 


230  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

absolutely  that  it  had  no  effect,  but  the  prices  fell  solely 
from  other  reasons,  it  would  give  fiatism  no  rights  in 
finance.  If  an  idle  rich  man  were  robbed  and  thus  forced 
to  go  to  work  and  it  proved  beneficial  to  his  health  and 
longevity  it  would  not  justify  the  robbery.  When  Joseph's 
brethren  found  him  "on  velvet"  in  Egypt  they  did  not 
ask  for  a  share  of  the  profits  on  the  ground  that  by  sell- 
ing him  into  slavery  they  put  him  on  the  way  to  fortune. 
When  Wells,  Atkinson'  and  others  say  that  improved 
methods  in  production  and  exchange  caused  the  fall  in 
prices  of  products  they  hide  the  fact  that  improved  meth- 
ods in  production  and  exchanging  would  work  as  much 
to  the  benefit  of  the  debtor  class  as  to  the  creditor  class  if 
we  had  the  natural  system  of  money.  That  they  do  not 
so  work  is  caused  by  legislation  meant  to  favor  creditors 
and  rob  debtors  and  producers.  The  tremendous  revival 
of  prosperity,  the  surpassing  of  anything  of  the  kind  ever 
known  in  our  history,  that  will  follow  the  establishment  of 
man's  natural  right  to  the  use  of  the  natural  medium  of 
exchange  will  come  from  the  fact  that  compared  to  their 
value  gold  and  silver  set  into  motion  a  greater  number 
of  activities  than  any  other  commodities  used  by  man. 
We  would  keep  our  own  silver  and-  use  much  of  Mexico's; 
would  keep  our  own  gold  and  drain  Europe  of  hers.  We 
would  have  such  a  home  market  that  Europe  could  not 
buy  at  bankrupt  and  auction  prices  what  she  needs  from 
us,  and  only  buys  because  compelled  to. 

Norman  confesses  that  if  we  go  back  to  constitutional 
coinage  silver  bullion  will  at  once  go  back  to  its  old  price 
— that  of  coin.  (p.  313.)  But  he  adds:  "The  United 
States  would  rapidly  lose  all  their  gold  under  the  opera- 
tion of  the  Gresham  law,  and  would  become  a  silver-stand- 
ard country,  like  the  eastern  countries  of  the  world."  It 
will  strike  every  shrewd  reader  at  once  that,  as  England 


THE  FiNANCiAL  PHILOSOPHY.  231 

is  grabbing  gold  and  as  Norman  is  helping  her,  it  is 
strange  that  he  discourages  us  from  a  course  that  would 
aid  his  main  object.  The  opposite  of  what  Norman  says 
is  the  truth  and  he  who  does  not  see  it  because  not  able 
or  who  conceals  it  from  dishonesty  has  no  standing  in  this 
controversy.  We  know  the  contrary  to  be  the  truth  in  the 
best  way  one  can  know  anything,  namely,  by  experiment. 
As  long  as  we  coined  silver  and  allowed  its  natural  value 
to  remain,  the  natural  value  of  our  other  products  re- 
mained ;  and  so  our  side  of  the  account  with  England  was 
large  as  expressed  in  money.  The  effect  was  to  make  a  bal- 
ance in  our  favor  or  reduce  the  balance  when  against  us. 
So  we  gained  gold  on  settlement  of  international  bal- 
ances. But  when  we  quit  coining  and  also  quit  buying 
silver  it  fell,  as  it  must,  and  our  products  that  England 
buys  fell,  as  they  must.  So  our  side  of  the  account  be- 
comes smaller  as  expressed  in  money  and  we  get  back 
less  gold  or  may  have  to  ship  it  to  pay  the  balance  against 
us,  even  when  she  buys  the  same  quantity  by  weight,  bulk 
or  length  from  us  and  we  buy  less  than  we  did  before  from 
her  in  weight,  bulk  or  length.  She  plunders  us  with  her 
Jew  Rothschild's  trick  because  she  cannot  rob  us  with 
the  sword  as  she  did  India. 

Trenholm  says: 

''Admit,  for  the  sake  of  argument  merely,  that  the  gov- 
ernment can  elect  to  make  the  silver  dollar  the  standard ; 
dare  we  encounter  the  consequences?  At  present  the 
standard  is  gold — gold  by  force  of  the  statute  of  Febru- 
ary 12,  1873,  establishing  the  dollar  of  25.8  grains  of  gold, 
nine-tenths  fine,  as  the  monetary  unit;  gold  by  contract 
under  the  Resumption  Act  of  1875;  gold  according  to  the 
real  worth  of  the  $4,700,000,000  of  good  money  lent  by 
the  people  to  the  banks,  in  the  form  of  deposits,  and  now 
owed  by  the  banks  to  the  people  in  gold;  gold  by  the 


232  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

common  understanding  and  business  dealings  of  the  peo- 
ple during  the  last  twenty  years.  State,  municipal,  rail- 
road and  other  corporation  bonds,  private  bonds,  notes 
and  contracts,  salaries,  wages,  rents  and  taxes,  are  all  on 
a  gold  basis,  placed  there  in  consequence  of  the  popular 
faith  in  these  solemn  enactments  by  Congress,  sanctioned 
by  pubHc  acquiescence. 

"Let  Congress  say,  now  that  the  standard  is  the  silver 
dollar,  and  straightway  a  loss  of  $2,350,000,000  will  fall 
upon  those  among  the  people  of  the  United  States  who 
have  no  gold,  no  foreign  exchange,  no  government  bonds, 
no  bank  stock. 

"The  people,  the  masses,  who  have  deposits  in  the  vari- 
ous banks,  and  who  hold  the  money  provided  by  the  gov- 
ernment, will  have  to  bear  the  entire  loss.  What  boots 
it  that  a  large  part  of  this  fearful  loss  will  be  offset  by 
gains  to  those  (banks  and  bankers)  who  now  owe  this 
money,  and  who  have  been  wise  enough  or  fortunate 
enough  to  invest  it  abroad,  or  to  hold  it  here  in  gold,  or 
insecurities  convertible  into  gold? 

"In  the  case  supposed  the  poor  will  all  be  made  poorer, 
the  great  bulk  of  the  people  who  are  in  moderate  circum- 
stances will  bear  the  chief  loss,  while  some  few  among  the 
rich  may  possibly  be  made  richer.  If  these  things  are 
clearly  apprehended,  either  in  Congress  or  among  the 
people,  will  any  voice  be  raised  to  disturb  the  public  con- 
fidence now  enjoyed  by  our  money?  No  patriot,  no 
statesman  could  wish  to  disturb  it;  no  demagogue  or 
fanatic  would  dare  to  do  so." 

How  generous,  how  disinterested  it  is  in  bankers  to 
pay  for  sending  millions  of  copies  of  such  stuflf  out  to 
keep  the  poor  from  making  themselves  poorer  and  the 
rich  richer.  Four  billion  seven  hundred  million  is  a 
pretty  penny,  but  Trenholm  knew  when  he  wrote  it  that 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  ^3^ 

it  was  insignificant  when  set  alongside  of  what  the  peo- 
ple owe,  in  the  myriad  form  of  bonds.  They  know  as 
well  as  he  does  that  the  remonetization  of  silver  and  the 
retirement  of  bank  notes  will  raise  the  prices  of  all  that 
produce  and  labor  with  which  they  really  pay  their  debts, 
or,  as  his  party  says,  will  inflate  them.  Wells  says  that  it 
would  be  "scaling  down"  the  debts  and  that  it  is  "rascal- 
ly." Demonetization  scaled  them  up  and  the  people  can 
justly  scale  them  back.  When  we  bankers  were  trying  to 
get  the  war  tax  on  deposits  taken  ofif  we  showed  that  de- 
posits do  not  truly  represent  actual  property,  because  the 
same  deposit  is  duplicated  and  even  appears  four  times 
by  sending  from  one  bank  to  another  for  credit.  Tren- 
holm  does  not  let  this  fact  appear  at  the  front  as  we  then 
did.    He  knows  it  as  well  as  he  did  then. 

The  gold-basis  fiatists  all  oppose  the  return  to  natural 
rights  on  the  ground  that  it  will  "inflate"  prices.  It  cer- 
tainly will  make  products  bring  higher  prices.  They  are 
unnaturally  lowered  now  by  flat  and  they  will  go  back  to  a 
natural  figure,  which  will  be  a  higher  one.  No  one  can 
then  buy  412-J  g^ins  of  silver  for  sixty  cents  and  coin  it 
into  a  dollar  and  buy  two  bushels  of  wheat  with  it  as  with 
a  dollar  now.  •  It  will  only  buy  one.  And  the  English 
money  already  coined  will  stay  at  the  same  purchasing 
power  as  now,  but  our  wheat  bought  by  it  will  be  twice 
its  present  average  price.  And  here  is  the  point  of  the 
whole  contest.  All  the  tons  of  literature,  all  the  countless 
lies,  all  the  struggles  start  from  this  point.  Shall  the  pro- 
ducer get  the  natural  value  of  his  products  under  the 
action  of  supply  and  demand;  or  shall  he  get  half  the 
value  and  be  robbed  of  the  other  half  by  the  English  rob- 
ber and  his  American  "pal"?  Shall  the  nominal  five  per 
cent  coupon  be  a  five  per  cent  coupon,  or  be  made  in 
effect  a  ten  per  cent  coupon?    That  is  the  kernel  of  the 


^U  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

case,  and  that  is  the  whole  case,  except  the  plot  to  restore 
monarchy  that  is  interwoven  with  it.  For  an  excellent 
statement  of  these  truths  I  am  indebted  to  Mr.  Trenholm, 
an  abridgement  of  whose  misnamed  work,  "The  People's 
Money,"  was  given  me  as  a  benevolent  act  when  about 
finishing  and  paging  my  manuscript  of  this  work: 

"Commerce  deals  in  commodities;  finance  deals  in 
values.  Comm.odities  are  things  classified  according  to 
their  substance,  their  utility  and  their  distribution;  values 
are  things  classified  according  to  their  value,vwithout  re- 
gard to  substance,  utility,  or  distribution. 

"Regarded  as  a  whole,  commerce  is  really  reducible  to 
a  complicated  system  of  barter,  of  which  finance  is  em- 
ployed in  keeping  an  account.  The  commoditi^es 
exchanged  in  bulk  by  commerce  are  here  measured  by 
value,  regardless  of  their  substance.  Every  invoice  is  rep- 
resented by  a  bill  of  lading  describing  its  substance  (com- 
mercial force)  and  a  bill  of  exchange  specifying  its  value 
(financial  force).  Bankers  deal  in  these,  and  when  bal- 
ances arise  between  individuals,  cities,  sections,  or  coun- 
tries, bankers  (who  are  merchants  of  money)  transfer  the 
'boot'  that  'evens  the  trade.'  Banks  perform  this  office  for 
individual  traders,  cities  and  sections;  clearing  houses 
perform  it  for  ban|^s;  the  body  of  foreign  bankers  per- 
form it  for  the  foreign  commerce  of  the  country  consid- 
ered as  a  whole. 

"This  being  the  case,  it  follows  that  the  principles  of 
barter,  of  simple  trade,  must  apply  to  all  commercial  and 
financial  operations;  that  the  ciphers  which  in  notation 
distinguish  1,000,000  from  I,  merely  change  the  degree 
of  whatever  force  the  integer  possesses — 1,000,000  dollars 
is  simply  one  dollar  raised  to  the  millionth  power,  as  a 
million  bushels  of  wheat  means  one  bushel  repeated  a  mil- 
lion times.    The  commerce  of  the  country,  though  ex- 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  235 

pressed  in  hundreds  of  millions  of  dollars,  is  made  up 
wholly  of  transactions  conducted  by  individuals;  all  of 
these  are  reducible,  as  we  have  seen,  to  a  common  denom- 
inator, value;  hence  in  the  aggregate  they  are  subject  to 
the  laws  and  influences  that  apply  to  each  separate  trans- 
action, and  to  none  others." 

What  gold-liatism  costs  one  State  can  be  judged  from 
this: 

The  last  report  of  the  secretary  of  the  Kansas  State 
Board  of  Agriculture  shows  that  products  for  the  preced- 
ing year  in  Kansas  were  as  follows: 

Field  products  $  61,154,139.26 

Live  stock  products 52,201,756.76 

Total $113,355,896.02 

The  annual  report  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  at 
Washington  shows  the  productions  of  precious  metals 
to  have  been  for  the  same  year: 

Gold  $  35,955,000.00 

Silver   77,576,000.00 

Total  $113,531,000.00 

The  return  to  the  use  of  hard  money  only  will  be  worth 
more  to  Missouri  on  her  crops  than  to  both  her  daughters, 
Colorado  and  Montana,  on  their  gold  and  silver.  Car- 
lyle's  report,  wherein  it  is  shown  that  during  the  Cleve- 
land famine  we  have  got  back  less  value  as  expressed  in 
money  though  in  some  cases  we  gave  the  same  in  quan- 
tity that  we  did  before,  neatly  supplemented  by  the  testi- 
mony of  experiment  Trenholm's  theory.  But  though  his 
English  masters,  Norman,  MacLeod,  and  their  disciple, 
Wells,  speak  boldly  for  the  rights  vested  in  the  fund-holder 
by  theft  under  fornts  of  law,  Trenholm  does  not  mention 


2SG  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

in  the  above  that  increasing  the  value  of  the  dollar  by  fiat, 
which  decreases  the  values  of  the  things  expressed  in  it, 
also  increases  the  value  of  the  coupon.  Even  if  we  de- 
pended on  fiat  to  raise  the  value  of  silver  it  would  by  Tren- 
holm's  logic  be  plainly  the  wise  thing  for  us  to  raise  its 
value  in  that  way  and  keep  it  up  by  fiat,  because  it  would 
"inflate''  the  value  of  what  we  sell  to  England  in  thus 
'inflating"  the  value  of  silver.     In  one  place  he  says: 

"The  whole  function  of  government,  with  respect  to 
money,  is  limited,  first,  to  establishing  by  law  what  shall 
constitute  the  general  medium  of  exchange,  measure  of 
value,  and  legal  tender  for  debt  and  public  dues,  and, 
secondly,  to  protecting  this  money  from  variations  in 
value  one  way  or  the  other." 

And  in  another: 

"Commerce  deals  in  commodities;  finance  deals  in 
values." 

Then  those  who  believe  that  fiat  can  and  ought 
to  raise  the  price  of  silver  by  remonetizing  it — 
if  they  had  no  better  ground — would  be  in  the  posi- 
tion of  being  shrewder  than  the  English  who  by 
the  same  means  directed  to  the  opposite  end  are  de- 
basing our  values.  And  they  have  Trenholm's  own 
words  to  justify  them:  "Finance  deals  in  values," 
and  one  of  the  functions  "of  government,  with  re- 
spect to  money,"  is  "protecting  this  money  from  varia- 
tions in  value  one  way  or  the  other."  If  we  go  back  to 
the  natural  system  we  will  always  easily  spare  the  little 
gold  that  we  need  for  setthng  foreign  balances.  If  we 
keep  to  gold-basis  fiatism  we  will  often  have  to  pay  a 
premium  for  gold  for  that  purpose,  but  it  will  often  be 
hid  from  the  masses  and  be  seen  only  in  the  price  of  for- 
eign exchange. 

Those  who  do  not  know  are  told  by  deceivers  that  sil- 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPm  237 

ver  will  not  settle  foreign  balances  even  if  we  remonetize 
it.  Norman  disproves  this  in  telling  that  our  silver  coins 
sell  in  England  at  their  circulating  value  in  America.  But 
silver  will  seldom  be  used  to  pay  international  balances 
even  where  it  is  worth  the  same  as  gold  at  i  to  1 6  or  i  to 
1 5 J,  for  the  simple  reason  that  it  is  so  much  more  trouble 
to  move.  When  it  is  so  used  it  will  go  from  us  as  Europe 
n6eds  it  from  time  to  time.  She  can  seldom  spare  any  to 
send  this  way.  Our  country  will  be  always  saturated  with 
coin,  as  Benton  wanted  it  to  be.  Even  if  there  are  times 
when  gold  gets  scarce  and  we  are  like  a  loaded  wagon 
on  a  hill,  silver,  the  stronger  horse,  will  hold  the  load  till 
gold  again  gets  down  to  work  and  does  its  share.  People 
who  do  not  see  ten  per  cent  of  gold  in  all  their  funds 
the  year  around,  make  a  fetich  out  of  it,  and  want  silver 
demonetized  for  fear  It  will  "drive  us  to  silver  mono- 
metallism." One  of  the  most  threadbare  fallacies  of  the 
gold-fiatists  is  that  ninety-five  per  cent  of  the  exchanging 
is  done  without  the  presence  of  the  actual  money,  but  by 
means  of  checks,  drafts,  etc.,  and  so  we  do  not  need  more 
silver.  That  does  not  give  fiat  any  rights  in  finance  if  true. 
But  what  merchant  ever  takes  any  account  of  that  in  draw- 
ing his  check  on  his  own  bank?  Must  he  not  make  pro- 
vision for  one  hundred  per  cent  and  not  for  five?  What 
bank  draws  on  its  city  correspondent  any  more  freely  for 
that  or  any  less  carefully  keeps  up  its  balances?  Com- 
pare this  with  one  of  their  favorite  and  threadbare  illus- 
trations that  a  vast  number  of  wagons  would  be  needed 
to  haul  the  silver  necessary  to  make  the  clearings  for 
New  York  city  alone.  They  forget  and'expect  their  listen- 
ers to  forget  the  statement  that  only  five  per  cent  of  the 
money  is  handled. 

"We  must  learn  to  be  content  with  our  horizons,"  can- 
not be  said  too  often.    Money  will  still  be  heavy  and  it 


238  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOlPHY. 

will  still  be  inconvenient  to  carry  large  sums  in  one's 
pocket.  It  will  cost  somebody  to  store  and  protect  and 
handle  it  whether  done  through  the  govefhment  or  other- 
wise. Drafts  and  checks  will  take  the  place  of  paper  cur- 
rency. Money  will  distribute  itself  evenly  through  the 
country  and  not  congest  at  centers.  Exchange  is  not 
made  by  shipping  money.  Exchange  is  found  in  the 
freight  cars,  not  in  the  express  cars.  Cattle  going  and 
shoes  coming  back  make  "exchange."  When  silver  must 
be  moved  it  is  no  worse  to  move  it  in  cars  than  when  we 
used  to  get  it  from  Chihuahua  in  rawhide  sacks,  hauled 
here  in  mule  wagons  that  had  hauled  the  merchandise  out 
there.  The  experience  of  our  Pacific  Coast  States  is  bet- 
ter than  anybody's  theory,  and  it  proves  that  there  is  no 
need  of  paper  money  for  mere  convenience.  The  gold- 
fiatist  argument  is  that  when  the  means  of  moving  weight 
were  few  and  rude  silver  was  not  inconvenient,  but  now 
as  they  are  greatly  increased  and  improved  on  it  has  be- 
come inconvenient. 

The  existence  of  paper  currency  here  proves  that  there 
is  not  enough  gold  and  silver  money.  Bankers  do  not 
furnish  bills  for  the  benevolent  purpose  of  saving  people 
the  trouble  of  carrying  coin.  They  do  it  because  it  is 
always,  practically,  fiat  money.  Its  issue  is  a  getting  of 
something  for  nothing,  the  most  enticing  of  all  things. 
Take  from  our  bankers  forever  the  privilege  of  issuing 
paper  and  they  will  at  once  become  allies  instead  of 
enemies  of  the  people.  For  it  will  then  be  to  their  inter- 
est that  coin  become  as  plenty  as  man's  industry  and 
nature's  generosity  will  allow.  Under  natural  banking 
they  make  their  profit  from  deposits.  In  issue-banking 
they  make  it  by  first  lending  what  borrowers  create  and 
then  getting  it  back  as  deposits  and  lending  it  again  as 
such. 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  239 

The  all-important  problem  of  joining  our  Pacific  Coast 
States  with  the  rest  of  the  country  by  connected  settle- 
ments, from  which  they  are  now  separated  by  a  vast  arid 
district,  can  be  solved  in  great  part  by  using  the  product 
of  the  mines  of  the  same  district  to  make  reservoirs  and 
open  ditches  (and  underground  kanats,  as  in  Persia,  to 
prevent  evaporation)  to  save  and  use  the  mountain  snows, 
representing  as  they  do  limitless  wealth  thrown  yearly  into 
the  sea.  In  our  Rocky  Mountains  we  have  a  score  of 
Switzerlands  in  beauty,  grandeur  and  picturesqueness, 
homes  for  millions  who  will  be  as  brave  and  patriotic  as 
the  Swiss  and  as  beautiful  in  form  and  feature  as  the  Cir- 
cassians. To  these  prairies  and  mountains  the  now 
wretched  troglodytes  of  greed's  creation  in  Boston  and 
New  York  can  go  and  live  as  human  beings ;  happy  them- 
selves, useful  to  the  republic.  The  very  famine  in  West- 
ern Nebraska  that  is  said  to  have  come  from  a  failure  of 
crops  is  truly  from  a  failure  to  use  the  silver  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains  to  save  the  snov/  water  from  the  same  moun- 
tains and  irrigate  Western  Nebraska  with  it.  I  know 
almost  every  foot  of  the  ground  and  all  of  the  conditions, 
and  know  whereof  I  speak.  ''Good  roads"  are  now  a 
pressing  need  (for  ours  belong  back  in  the  days  when 
gentlemen  had  rush-covered  floors  and  threw  bones  under 
the  table  to  the  dogs),  but  they  cannot  be  built  unless  we 
use  our  own  money  metals  otherwise  than  by  doing  what 
Cleveland  is  trying  to  make  us  do :  mortgage  ourselves  to 
his  Anglo-Hebrew  masters  beyond  all  hope  of  ever  get- 
ting out  of  debt.  The  wheel  is  going  to  do  what  no  other 
power  has  been  able  to  do:  give  woman  a  rational  dress 
and  wipe  out  the  very  memory  of  "nerves"  and  bring  on 
a  larger,  more  robust  woman.  A  network  of  turnpikes 
all  over  the  Union  that  can  only  be  paid  for  by  reopening 
our  silver  mines  is  an  absolute  necessity.     If  built  with- 


240  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

out  reopening  our  silver  mines  and  closing  our  issue- 
banks  no  one  will  ride  on  them  without  paying  toll  to 
Rothschild.  The  big  silver  dollar  and  the  wheel  of  the 
roadster  are  allies.  When  one  sees  the  work  there  is  for 
money  to  do  and  hears  the  expressions  of  the  honest  fears 
of  the  duped,  and  hypnotized,  and  uninformed,  that  we 
will  have  "a  flood  of  silver,"  be  made  "the  dumping 
ground  of  the  world)"  etc.,  he  is  made  to  think  of  the 
answer  of  the  Goths  (whom  Alexander  the  Great  asked 
if  there  was  anything  of  which  they  were  afraid)  that  there 
is  always  danger  that  the  sky  may  fall  and  they  were  al- 
ways afraid  of  it. 

Trenholm  says: 

"The  Resumption  Act,  which  was  passed  January  14, 
1875,  <iid  not  raise  the  greenbacks  to  par,  but  the  accumu- 
lation of  $70,000,000  of  gold  coin  in  the  Treasury  brought 
the  gold  premium  down,  and  the  negotiation  of  $50,000,- 
000  of  bonds  for  $50,000,000  of  gold  coin  finally  extin- 
guished it.  The  credit  of  the  government  was  perfected, 
not  by  the  law,  but  by  the  financial  operations  that  ren- 
dered resumption  practicable. 

"Now  undoubtedly  the  confidence  of  the  foreign  bank- 
ers who  lent  the  greater  part  of  this  $50,000,000  rested 
upon  their  belief  in  the  honesty  and  intelligence,  as  well 
as  in  the  resources  of  the  people  of  the  United  States." 

How  did  we  "accumulate"  the  seventy  millions  and  the 
part  of  the  fifty  millions  not  had  of  foreign  bankers?  It 
was  by  selling  much  of  our  products  abroad  and  getting 
much  of  foreign  products  back  on  which  duty  was  paid  in 
gold.  If  we  had  had  little  to  sell  we  could  not  have  bought 
much.  The  more  we  had  to  sell  the  more  we  were  able  to 
buy,  and  so  the  more  quickly  the  government  could  ac- 
cumulate by  collecting  import  duties  in  gold.  But  whence 
came  the  gold?    Partly  from  the  disbanded  soldiers  of 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  241 

both  our  armies,  who  dug  it  in  Colorado,  Montana,  Idaho, 
CaHfornia,  and  other  States  and  territories,  and  partly 
from  the  fact  that  our  products  being  high  in  price  the 
tendency  was  to  make  our  side  of  the  account  larger  and 
the  balance  was  paid  us  in  European  gold.  The  lower- 
ing of  prices  by  demonetization  tends  to  reverse  the  proc- 
ess and  had  we  been  then  in  the  case  we  are  now  we  could 
not  have  kept  the  gold ;  it  would  have  run  out  as  it  now 
does  out  of  Cleveland's  sieve  lent  him  by  Rothschild. 
Trenholm  could  profitably  read  the  paper  of  Geo.  A.  But- 
ler of  the  Tradesman's  Bank,  New  Haven,  read  at  the 
American  Bankers'  Association,  in  which  he  took  the 
ground,  in  substance,  that  our  crops  made  resumption 
possible.  Ben  Butler  said  about  the  same  in  Congress.  So 
it  was  the  man  following  the  mule  through  the  corn  rows 
in  the  July  sun  and  not  the  foreign  bankers  who  did  it. 

Professor  Laughlin  of  Chicago  says: 

"Free  coinage  of  silver  would  not  increase  the  quantity 
of  money.  Since  gold  must  be  inevitably  driven  out,  the 
free  coinage  of  silver  would  result  in  a  diminution  of  the 
quantity  of  money.  May  i,  1895,  the  official  report  of  the 
gold  circulation  was  $568,000,000.  To  adopt  free  coinage 
of  silver  at  16  to  i  when  the  market  ratio  is  about  34  to  i 
would  mean  the  instant  retirement  from  circulation  of 
nearly  $600,000,000  of  gold  circulation.  It  could  not 
change  prices,  therefore,  merely  by  increasing  the  amount 
of  the  medium  of  exchange." 

Bankers  have  become  ashamed  to  be  caught  trying 
to  palm  off  the  argument  that  six  hundred  milHons  can 
be  taken  from  the  circulation  at  once  and  not  raise  the  pur- 
chasing price  of  the  rest.  They  have  turned  it  over  to 
college  professors. 

Not  the  least  important  result  will  be  getting  rid  of  a 
whole  Federal  department  and  giving  better  opportunity 


242  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

for  the  people  through  their  government  to  take  by  the 
throats  those  who  have  by  theft  concealed  under  the  name 
of  "water"  made  themselves  kings  and  are  exacting  tribute 
at  will  on  the  highways  and  putting  their  creatures  on  the 
bench  to  legalize  their  plundering.  King  Humbert  or 
King  Oscar  and  many  another  would  be  infinitely  prefer- 
able to  King  Gould,  or  King  Vanderbilt,  or  King  Hunt- 
ington. They  must  either  be  changed  from  robber  plans 
to  business  plans  or  taken  out  of  the  hands  of  the  rob- 
bers who  claim  them.  And  in  that  case  they  can  only 
become  public  property.  For  freemen  to  submit  perma- 
nently to  the  present  state  of  affairs  is  not  to  be  thought 
of,  whether  government  control  of  railways  be  best  or 
not.    From  a  newspaper  this  is  taken : 

"John  Wanamaker  met  a  number  of  nationalists  and 
other  radical  reformers  for  a  friendly  conference  on  the 
evening  of  March  i,  1895,  ^t  Co-operation  Hall,  Phila- 
delphia." 

He  vsaid  among  other  things: 

"As  for  men  who  deal  unjustly  with  their  employes,  I 
think  you  can  make  a  public  sentiment  that  will  make  it 
too  warm  for  a  man  who  is  robbing  labor.  No  man  ever 
made  $150,000,000,  or  even  $50,000,000 — ^he  may  have 
captured  it  in  a  sort  of  way,  but  he  never  made  it." 

He  was  too  polite  to  say  "stole."  A  writer  in  the  Popu- 
lar Science  Monthly  spoke  of  "watering  stocks  and  other 
forms  of  theft."  The  owners  of  that  magazine  and  the 
merchant  above  quoted  have  helped  all  these  forms  of 
theft  by  helping  the  one  that  is  at  the  bottom  of  them 
all — ^the  theft  of  the  right  to  the  use  of  silver.  They  have 
also  helped  those  who  have  stolen  the  millions  by  the 
theft  of  the  public  credit  from  those  to  whom  it  belongs 
and  t«rning  it  over  for  use  by  those  who  water  stocks  by 
borrowing  it.    Those  to  whom  it  belongs  as  much  as  to 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  243 

them,  who  do  more  to  create  it  than  the  stock-waterers, 
to-vvit,  the  laborers,  cannot  get  it  at  ail. 

We  may  sum  up  the  special  uses  of  money  as  four  things 
that  make  it  absolutely  necessary  that  we  remonetize  sil- 
ver and  cease  to  give  away  the  use  of  the  public  credit. 
First,  our  arid  district  must  be  irrigated.  Second,  we 
must  have  good  stone  roads  for  vehicles  of  pleasure  and 
work,  a  network  of  them  all  over  the  Union.  Thirdly,  we 
must  rise  to  a  height  that  no  other  nation  ever  has  in 
ceasing  to  tax  the  liquor  traffic,  for  as  long  as  we  live  from 
it  we  will  never  do  anything  else  with  it.  In  order  to  the 
last  step  we  must  have  a  good  water  supply,  and  in  order 
to  that  we  must  cease  to  empty  the  ever-increasing  volume 
of  sewage  into  the  great  rivers.  The  cost  of  disposing  of 
the  sewage  otherwise  than  in  the  primitive  and  barbarous 
fashion  of  pouring  it  into  the  rivers  whence  we  get  our 
drinking  water  will  be  an  expensive  one  at  first,  but  when 
the  apparatus  is  paid  for  it  can  be  made  self-supporting, 
or  perhaps  even  profitable.  The  conspirators  think  that 
in  these  things  they  have  an  endless  bond-slavery  to  them- 
selves and  the  Jew  money  lenders  of  Europe,  their  part- 
ners. The  money  that  we  need  for  these  purposes,  if  taken 
out  of  our  own  mountains,  will  result  in  making  those 
districts  as  populous  as  Switzerland,  and  "free  soil"  instead 
of  slave  territory. 

When  Darwin  was  told  that  it  would  have  a  bad  effect 
on  morals  to  publish  his  treatise  of  the  evolution  doctrine 
he  answered  that  he  was  concerned  only  with  learning 
truth  and  telling  it,  not  with  the  moral  consequences  there- 
of. The  religious  say  the  same  in  another  way:  "Duties 
are  ours,  consequences  God's."  The  application  of  the 
true  principles  must  have  the  best  results.  We  need  not 
fear  that.  In  the  stories  of  "casting  out  devils"  the  evil 
spirit  was  usually  said  to  rend  his  victim  before  leaving. 


244  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

The  demons  of  greed  will  do  this  as  they  did  during 
Jackson's  ''casting  out"  act.  They  must  therefore  be 
handled  by  men  who  are  firm,  cool  and  pitiless  against 
wrong. 

One  of  our  greatest  needs  is  that  of  coinage  reform. 
It  is  folly  to  coin  double  eagles — a  premium  to  rogues 
and  exporters.  As  an  artist  I  agree  to  put  in  place  of 
our  present  mixture  of  folly,  ugliness  and  theology  a 
handsome  set  of  coins,  all  of  full  weight,  and  not  even  the 
cent  to  be  made  of  copper,  nor  the  half  dime  of  nickel; 
but  all  of  silver,  with  one  or  two  gold  coins.  The. only 
reason  we  coin  nickel  half  dimes  is  that  it  displaces  some 
millions  of  dollars  of  silver  and  thus  helps  to  lower  the 
price  of  silver  bullion,  and  those  who  lower  it  then  plead 
its  low  price  as  a  reason  why  the  deprivation  of  the  natural 
right  of  owners  of  bullion  to  coin.it  into  money  be  held  to. 
Our  new  quarters  have  on  them  what  is  called  an  eagle, 
but  that  looks  like  a  dead  chicken  that  has  been  thrown 
into  the  alley  of  a  country  town  and  been  dessicated  and 
flattened  out  by  running  over  it  with  many  wagons.  Our 
"In  God  we  trust"  was  put  on  to  help  out  our  missionaries 
when  sneering  Turks  told  them  that  the  Americans  do 
not  worship  God,  but  worship  the  woman  whose  image  is 
on  the  coin.  It  is  a  poor  offset  for  the  material  aid  we 
give  England  by  demonetization,  thus  making  her  the 
abler  to  hold  off  Russia  from  protecting  Armenians  from 
deliberate  extinction  by  Turks.  It  is  not  by  accident  that 
the  Jew  bankers  back  Eng;land  in  supporting  Turkish 
interlopers  in  the  old  home  of  the  Aryan  race  whilst  they 
exterminate  our  brave  but  unfortunate  Ar^^an  kinsman, 
the  Armenians.  There  is  more  far-reaching  politics  and 
race-hatred  in  gold  fiatism  than  is  dreamed  of  in  most 
men's  philosophy. 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  245 


CHAPTER  XL 
THE  SOURCE  OF  GOLD-FIATISM. 

How  peaceful,  how  happy,  how  Arcadian  seems  the 
old  slave  life  of  the  South  when  set  against  the  pictures 
in  Boston  in  ^'Civilization's  Inferno,"  or  those  that  I  have 
given  herein!  Vastly  better  it  would  have  been  to  let 
Mr.  Toombs  call  the  roll  of  his  slaves  at  Faneuil  Hall,  if 
we  must  choose  between  two  systems  of  slavery.  Look 
back  at  the  reasonable  tasks,  the  good  clothing,  the  plen- 
teous food,  the  comfortable  quarters,  the  banjo-playing 
and  the  dance  and  song  by  moonlight,  the  easy-going 
**01e  Marse,"  and  the  careful,  conscientious  "Ole  Mis'.'' 
All  that  was  necessary  was  obedience.  The  bloodhound 
and  chain  and  lash  were  only  for  those  who  resisted.  Their 
labor  supported  the  whole  fabric,  but  they  got  the  benefit 
to  as  great  a  degree  as  comfort  required.  In  this  other 
system  of  slavery  the  bloodhound  and  chain  and  lash  of 
hunger  eat  alike  into  the  flesh  of  those  who  have  favored 
and  those  who  have  opposed  it.  The  black  suckling  was 
then  cared  for;  the  white  one  is  now  murdered  by  hunger 
in  its  mother's  arms.  Lincoln  set  the  masters  free,  Sher- 
man and  Cleveland  have  put  them  and  their  slaves  back 
into  a  worse  slavery.  Who  are  the  ruthless  Arabs  of  the 
new  slavery?  Who  is  to  blame?  At  whose  door  do  these 
foul  crimes  lie?  The  men  who  struck  the  pick  and  shovel 
out  of  the  hands  of  the  silver  miners  are  the 
murderers  of  those  sucklings  and  those  working  men; 
by  that  act  they  alone  purposely  brought  about 
the    degradation  of    our    country-women     and    made 


246  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

vagabonds  and  criminals  of  the  laborers  who  create 
the  values  in  this  and  all  other  lands.  Others 
helped  them,  but  they  did  so  through  their  igno- 
rance of  the  history  of  the  evolution  of  money  and  of  the 
principles  of  the  science  of  money.  In  this  latter  class 
are  all  who  have  favored  the  issue  of  paper  currency  by  the 
Federal  Government  and  who  have  demanded  that  the 
greenbacks  be  kept  in  circulation.  Their  opposition  to 
the  retirement  of  the  Treasury  notes,  called  greenbacks, 
was  based  on  the  idea  that  they  are  a  useful  tool.  They 
have  been  turned  into  a  weapon  for  cutting  purses  and 
throats  alike.  The  constitution  never  contemplated  the 
issue  of  coin  certificates,  the  warehousing  or  storing  of 
any  individual's  money  or  bullion  for  him.  This  custom, 
too,  has  been  turned  into  a  plan  for  cutting  purses  and 
throats  at  the  same  blow.  Just  as  the  miner  does  not  want 
to  have  the  public  credit  loaned  to  the  farmer,  so  the  farm- 
er may  object  to  storing  the  miner's  metal  free  of  cost 
in  public  buildings  and  issuing  certificates  therefor. 

Trenholm  says: 

"While  it  is  evident  that  'the  nature  of  things'  is  respon- 
sible for  the  use  of  gold  as  the  sole  medium  of  settlement 
in  London,  it  may  be  interesting  to  follow  the  process  by 
which  the  transition  from  silver  to  gold  has  been  efifected." 

This  would  be  not  less  amusing  than  Wells'  story  that 
the  thoughtfulness  of  certain  minds  in  Europe  caused  the 
continental  nations  to  unmake  silver  money  by  fiat,  if 
one  can  be  amused  at  all  in  a  case  where  men  of  such 
pretensions  thus  abandon  justice.  The  only  way  in  which 
it  is  in  "the  nature  of  things"  that  gold  is  made  the  only 
money  in  London  by  fiat  is  that  it  is  the  nature  of  the 
Jews  to  propose  the  plan  of  theft  of  1816  and  of  their  Gen- 
tile partners  to  help  them  to  carry  it  into  eflfect.  It  is  irri- 
tating to  find  such  presumption  on  the  gross  ignorance  of 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  247 

the  American  people  as  well  as  to  find  such  abandonment 
of  morals  as  in  Trenholm  and  Cleveland  in  their  use  of 
such  trash.  When  Cleveland,  copying  it  from  Trenholm 
put  it  in  his  Chicago  letter  the  country  newspapers  quick- 
ly answered  that  he  failed  to  speak  of  our  debts.  Men 
never  aired  their  own  ignorance,  or  their  immorality  in 
trying  to  deceive  those  who  they  think  are  ignorant  more 
than  Wells,  Trenholm  and  others  in  saying  that  the  prog- 
ress of  civilization  calls  for  the  use  of  gold  only  and  the 
absurd  plan  of  writing  promissory  notes  on  silver.  It  is 
the  success  of  polished  barbarism — stealing  and  robbing 
under  forms  of  law — ^that  puts  in  the  hands  of  a  few  such 
vast  calls  on  the  labor  and  property  of  the  many,that  they 
are  unwilling  to  conten^plate  their  quotation  or  payment 
in  silver.  It  is  the  Apache  in  a  silk  hat  who  doubles  his 
own  property  in  bonds  by  demonetizing  silver  and  tax- 
ing the  dispossessed  miner  to  pay  for  the  public  credit 
to  make  him  a  present  of  its  use,  just  as  the  original  (brave) 
Apache  stole  the  miners'  horses.  It  is  among  the  prim- 
itive Goths  and  Celts  that  gold  answered  for  money,  where 
small  values  were  not  dealt  in.  It  is  in  civilized  Lydia  and 
Mesopotamia  that  kia-par,  white  gold,  is  money.  And 
so  in  our  modern  society,  the  retail  system,  its  distinctive 
feature  in  trade,  not  only  calls  for  more  and  more  silver, 
but  for  all  feasible  divisions  of  it.  Wells  says  they  are 
not  destroying  it  as  money,  it  will  still  be  so  used  among 
us  (in  the  asinine  fashion  of  writing  promissory  notes  on 
it.)  It  is  a  sickening  state  of  things  to  contemplate:  the 
consummate  flowers  of  "civilization,"  the  president,  the 
pretended  philosophers  with  foreign  decorations,  the  elite 
of  society  on  one  hand,  and  upon  the  other  hand  the  pale, 
starving  mother  composing  in  death  the  Hmbs  of  her  skel- 
eton-like suckling,  the  woman  longing  for  honest  mother- 
hood forced  to  sell  her  body  for  hire  to  those  she  loathes; 


248  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

the  men  forced  to  beg,  steal,  starve  or  kill  themselves — 
and  the  first  group  causing  the  misfortunes  of  the  latter. 

The  cause  of  the  soft-money  party  hiding  under  the 
pretense  of  a  "gold-basis"  is  unique  in  one  remarkable 
respect.  It  is  the  only  system  of  slavery  ever  known  with 
absolutely  no  justifying  feature  or  circumstance,  and 
whose  foundation  has  not  a  single  truth  to  break  the 
monotony  of  the  mass  of  falsehood  on  which  it  is  based 
and  with  which  it  is  defended. 

One  evening  I  was  at  the  Capitol  Building  in  Wash- 
ington, one  of  two  or  three  times  that  I  have  been  there, 
and  all  was  fresh  and  interesting  to  me.  It  was  late  in  the 
spring,  and  there  was  one  of  those  sunsets  that,  it  seems 
to  me,  are  richer  in  America  than  anywhere  else  that  I 
have  been.  Over  in  Virginia  lay  Arlington,  the  estate  sold 
to  Custis  by  my  kinsman.  Over  those  Virginia  hills  he 
had  hunted  with  Washington,  and  the  latter  has  men- 
tioned that  companion  of  his  rides  after  hounds  and  foxes 
oftener  than  any  other  name  in  it,  with,  perhaps,  one  ex- 
ception. There  was  pride  and  happiness  in  my  thoughts 
as  the  jiicture  rose  in  my  mind  of  what  lay  between  me  and 
the  shore  w^here  the  sun  would  be  seen  to  drop  as  into  the 
great  ocean  of  the  West.  Much  of  the  country  I  had  seen, 
and  knew  how  to  bring  to  mind  the  scenes  of  industry  in 
it;  and  seemed  to  hear  the  hum  of  every  industry  of  each 
section  and  state.  The  fruits  and  forests  of  the  Pacific 
Coast;  the  picks  and  shovels  in  the  mines  of  the  moun- 
tains; the  herds  on  the  great  plains;  the  plows  in  the  great 
valley;  the  forges,  mills  and  factories  farther  east;  the 
steamers  and  trains,  and  the  stalwart,  happy  and  hopeful 
freemen  witli  it  all,  the  light-hearted  children  and  the 
women  treated  more  nearly  as  they  should  be  than  in  any 
other  land;  and  climates  to  suit  any  and  all  tastes — all 
made  a  rarely  pleasant  picture  to  t^e  mind.    It  seemed  to 


tHB  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  ^4^ 

me  that  the  greatness  of  the  opportunity  that  our  country 
had  opened  to  mankind  was  far  beyond  any  that  the  race 
had  ever  had  before,  and  that  fact  seemed  to  entitle  Wash- 
ington, to  whom  we  are  mainly  indebted  for  it,  to  the 
position  of  the  greatest  figure  in  all  human  history. 

I  was  not  the  only  one  who  had  taken  a  bird's-eye  view 
of  this  country,  its  people  and  their  capacity  to  produce. 
A  firm  and  family  of  money  lenders  in  Europe,  alien  in 
race,  hating  the  Aryan  ''because  he  is  a  Christian"  nomi- 
nally, and  hating  us  from  millenniums  of  indulgence  in  race 
hatred ;  they  and  a  great  banking  corporation  the  support 
of  a  monarchy  that  is  our  one  great  enemy  in  all  the  world 
— put  their  heads  together  and  made  a  plan  of  plunder. 
And  it  had  this  sweetness  for  them  in  it:  it  would  not  only 
plunder  America,  but  it  would  so  create  disorder  here  that 
it  would  threaten  our  republic  form  of  government  and 
give  them  hopes  of  its  overthrow.  This  commended  the 
plan  to  the  royalty  and  "nobility"  of  the  kingdom  of  Cleve- 
land Street,  whose  capital  has  its  east  end  where  creatures 
in  the  form  of  men,  women  and  children,  dehumanized  by 
poverty,  are  reeking  in  material  filth  and  rotting  mentally, 
morally  and  physically  from  necessity;  and  its  west  end, 
where,  dehumanized  by  oppressing  others,  some  in  the 
forms  of  men  and  women,  are  reeking  and  rotting  mental- 
ly, morally  and  physically  from  choice.  There  some  of  our 
people,  our  Clevelands,  Wells,  Bayards,  get  one  of  their 
sample  countries  of  "high  civilization,"  and  to  that  condi- 
tion are  forcing  us. 

To-day  the  picture  that  I  saw  from  the  Capitol  at  Wash- 
ington is  changed.  Almost  despair  has  taken  hope's  place ; 
stalwart  laborers  are  turned  into  vagabonds  and  crim- 
inals, our  countrywomen  who  deserve  our  protection  are 
driven  into  prostitution  by  thousands  to  keep  from  starv- 
ing and  even  innocent  and  helpless  sucklings  are  mur- 


250  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSUPHY. 

dered   by   hunger   on   the    sapless   breasts    of   starving 
mothers.  ^ 

The  assumption  of  wisdom  in  themselves  and  the  igno- 
rance attributed  to  the  people  is  expressed  in  Cleveland's 
Chicago  letter:  **A  large  number  of  our  people,  with  scant 
opportunity  thus  far,  to  examine  the  question  in  all  its 
aspects,"  etc.  Few  persons  in  America  have  had  as  scant 
opportunity  as  the  one  who  says  that.  City  men  in  general, 
politicians  and  business  men  in  especial,  are  readers  of 
newspapers  and  magazines  only.  And  they  find  in  those 
.  that  they  take  only  what  money  lenders  and  debt-holders 
want  them  to  read.*  The  men  who  know  the  most  on  this 
subject  are  those  western  men  who  know  the  question  of 
gold  and  silver  by  experience  and  observation  on  the  spot 
where  they  are  producd.  Harper's  Monthly  once  had  a 
poem  of  which  the  moral  was  that  clerking,  bookkeeping 
and  such  like  work  ought  to  be  left  to  women.  It  was 
called,  I  think,  "The  Sewing  Bird"  (a  device  in  the  shape 
of  a  bird,  once  used  to  hold  a  woman's  work  in  its  beak 
as  she  sewed  by  hand).  It  was  made  to  be  alive,  to  fly, 
and  sing  a  song  telling  of  the  sturdy  miners  in  mines  with 
pick  and"  shovel,  and  looking  at  great  lumps  of  money 
metals,  and  the  refrain  was: 

"*     *     *     See,  see,  see! 
Here  are  the  places  where  men  should  be!" 

Then  the  men  went  to  those  places.    I  have  seen  some 
who  did  not  get  there,  but  lay  scalped  on  the  road.    And 

*In  my  opinion  the  backing  of  the  paper  called  Puck  comes 
from  bankers  m  this  country  and  Europe.  To  keep  any  one 
from  suspecting  that  it  is  the  organ  of  plundering  Jew  bankers 
it  is  full  of  girdings  at  poor  and  industrious  Jews  who  rather 
deserve  commiseration  and  encouragement  than  ridicule.  Run 
by  a  foreigner  it  figured  Mr.  Bland  of  old  Revolutionary  stock 
as  a  safe-blower 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  261 

after  those  who  got  there  had  found  the  metal  desired, 
Harper's  Weekly  called  the  resistance  to  its  unconstitu- 
tional demonetization  a  ''rebellion,"  and  its  nasty  Nast 
pictured  Cleveland  saying:  "It  will  not  take  long  to  put 
this  one  down." 

The  critical  school  in  finance  like  the  critical  school  in 
theology  has  had  to  struggle  for  a  hearing.  Before  the 
Arena  was  established  there  was  no  more  chance  of  a 
hearing  for  the  natural  and  constitutional  system  of 
finance  in  the  East  than  there  was  for  natural  rights  for 
negroes  in  the  South  among  my  kin  before  1861.  When  - 
the  Missouri  State  Convention  of  1895  met  in  Kansas 
City,  a  republican  gold-fiat  organ  of  St.  Louis  noted  with 
surprise  how  much  better  equipped  for  argument  were 
the  unfashionably-clad  members  from  the  country  than 
the  silk-hatted  and  kid-gloved  who,  under  ex-Governor 
Francis,  tried  to  meet  them.  "They  have-read  everything 
they  could  lay  their  hands  on  that  has  been  written  on  the 
subject,"  it  said.  They  downed  him  in  argument  and  he 
downed  them  in  practical  chicane. 

An  old  schoolmate,  a  man  who  has  been  just  short  of 
the  presidency,  and  who  may  reach  it  yet,  said  to  me  as 
he  looked  out  of  his  office  window  down  from  a  dizzy 
height  to  a  little  square  of  green  grass  that  could  be  seen 
in  Trinity  Church-yard:  "There  is  all  that  I  have  to  re- 
mind me  of  the  real  world."  And  he  added :  "The  coun- 
try makes  men,  the  city  devours  them."  Those  wretched 
cliff-dwellers  living  over  yet  more  wretched  cave-dwellers 
in  New  York  and  London,  and  other  cities,  with  bodies 
and  brains  steadily  deteriorating  from  year  to  year,  from 
generation  to  generation,  and  with  morals  as  steadily  fol- 
lowing them  downward  under  the  narrowing  and  debas- 
ing influence  of  concentrating  all  thought  on  gain  and  all 
effort  on  gratifying  greed ;  in  a  physical  and  moral  atmos- 


252  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

phere  fit  only  for  the  reptilian  age,  and  in  material  sur- 
roundings that  cannot  grow  a  high  type  of  man — ^they 
really  imagine  that  they  understand  this  question,  that  they 
are  competent  teachers  for  the  masses  who  sleep  soundly, 
breathe  pure  air  and  who  think  freely.  What  is  the  source, 
where  is  the  fountain  at  which  Cleveland  and  his  associates 
got  their  wisdom,  their  financial  knowledge  that  we  with 
"scant  opportunities";  we,  the  New  York  Herald's  "semi- 
barbarians  of  the  Trans-Mississippi,"  who  "will  never  be 
allowed  to  run  the  finances  of  the  country,"  are  short  of? 
The  wisdom  is  bottled  up  in  Cleveland,  Atkinson,  Wells, 
the  Forum,  the  North  American  Review,  in  nearly  all  the 
city  dailies  (mere  clearing  house  bulletins),  in  city  national 
banks  of  the  South  whose  stock  is  owned  in  New  York 
city,  in  southern  cotton  exchanges  that  are  owned  by  the 
•  latter  banks.  That  supreme  wisdom  is  on  tap  only  in  one 
place  in  America,  the  only  authorized  agency: 


A.  BELMONT  &  CO., 

23  Nassau  Street, 

New  York  City. 


The  fountain  is: 


ROTHSCHILD, 
Frankfurt-am-Mai'n. 


For  English  consumers  it  is  piped  to  London,  whence  our 
supply  comes.  Is  not  that  a  proud  position  for  the  race 
that  calls  itself  "Aryan"  and  says  that  Aryan  means 
"noble"?* 

♦That  so  many  Jews  in  the  United  States  have  not  renounced 
their  allegiance  to  this  foreign  potentate  and  king  of  all  the 
Gentile  potentates,  and   go  against  the   constitution   in   this 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  252 

In  my  review  of  the  President's  message  (that  went  to 
10,000  copies),  I  said: 

"The  poor  Russian  Jews  farming  in  North  Dakota  have 
been  starving  and  trying  to  pay  from  one  to  three  per  cent 
a  month  on  Eastern  and  European  money,  whilst  Mon- 
tana's hoards  of  silver  are  shut  up  in  her  mountains  to 
keep  money  from  being  too  plenty  to  suit  Rothschild  and 
Bleichroeder." 

When  these  sad  cases  were  first  reported  I  wrote  to  a 
JevN'ish  paper  in  Cincinnati,  run  by  a  great  Jewish  rabbi, 
and  called  his  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  Jews  who  have 
more  than  they  know  what  to  do  with  in  Europe  are  more 
cruel  to  their  unfortunate  kin  than  the  Russians  who  had 
driven  them  out  for  cause.  "His  answer  and  refusal  to 
publish  my  article  made  it  plain  to  mcthat  he  was  acting 
in  the  interest  of  the  king  of«the  Jews  and  Gentiles  and 
would  say  nothing  against  him.  It  is  likely  that  his  paper 
is  partly  supported  by  them. 

New  York  grows  daily  in  its  more  than  Oriental  mag- 
nificence. A  book  of  its  new  buildings,  especially  its  new 
clearing  house,  lately  reached  me.  It  was  a  saddening 
sight,  for,  speaking  in  bounds,  three  dollars  out  of  every 
five  in  value  represented — was  stolen.  It  is  a  repetition 
on  a  great  scale  of  the  old  southern  mansions  and  gardens 
built  on  slavery.  "Action  and  reaction  are  equal  and  op- 
posite" is  not  alone  a  law  in  physics :  it  is  universal.  There 
will  be  a  day  of  doom  for  every  system  of  slavery.  Ten 
thousand  times  ten  thousand  better  be  a  free  man  in  a 
one-story  log  cabin  with  a  dirt  roof  than  be  a  slave  or  an 
enslaver,  a  begetter  of  other  slaves  or  other  thieves,  in 
the  magnificent  clifT-dwelHngs  of  New  York  and  other 
cities. 

matter,  adds  another  complication  to  the  question  of  immigra- 
tion, and  naturalization.  They  never  made  a  greater  mistake 
than  to  follow  Rothschild  instead  of  the  constitution. 


254  •  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

I  have  just  given  to  the  State  of  Iowa  the  sword  that 
my  father  bought  as  he  came  from  West  Point  a  striphng 
Heutenant,  whither  he  went  as  a  compHment  to  his  obsti- 
nate and  turbulent  rebel  grandsire.  He  carried  it  through 
the  war  in  which  the  power  of  "the  implacable  Foxes," 
and  their  co-tribesmen,  the  Sacs,  was  broken.  If  the  last 
two  years  are  a  sample  of  white  civilization  then  the  abo- 
riginal savagery  is  better.  Better  an  Indian^s  paradise 
than  a  white  laborer's  hell. 

This  is  a  battle  between  England  and  America.  The 
old  country  has  the  attractiveness  that  comes  from  having 
the  accumulated  art  treasures  of  centuries.  This  is  not 
alone  pictures  and  statues,  it  is  all  that  goes  to  make  a 
beautiful  and  enjoyable  country  through  natural  advan- 
tages with  man's  work  added  thereto.  Besides  this  the 
historical  associations  add  greatly  to  the  human  interest. 
England  looks  like  a  series  of  gardens;  America  looks 
new,  rude  and  crude  to  one  coming  back  from  Europe. 
But  the  sooner  we  turn  the  tide  the  sooner  we  cease  to  be 
Europe's  debtor  and  become  her  creditor,  the  sooner  will 
we  begin  to  make  this  the  attractive  part  of  the  world, 
whither  travelers  spending  their  millions  yearly  will  come. 
The  tide  of  creators  of  value  sets  this  way  now.  The 
stream  o^the  enjoyers  of  what  the  others  made  sets  that 
way.  The  President  and  his  party  are  allies  of  our  enemies 
against  ourselves.  They  want  to  keep  us  in  everlasting 
slavery  to  England.  There  can  be  but  one  reason  for 
this:  that  they  share  the  plunder. 

Trenholm  says: 

"Gold  monometallism  is  the  unavoidable  destiny  of  this 
country;  the  sooner  we  recognize  this  and  fix  it  in  our 
laws,  the  sooner  will  we  reap  the  fruits,"  etc. 

That  attempt  at  cowing,  at  hypnotizing,  brings  to  mind 
the  only  unpleasant  recollection  that  I  have  of  the  one  with 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  265 

the  most  distinguished  record  of  three  in  whose  right  I 
hold,  and  half  a  dozen  others  in  whose  right  I  might  hold 
membership  in  the  Sons  of  the  Revolution.  With  the  im- 
portance attaching  to  an  old  Continental  officer  he  wrote 
from  Virginia  and  urged  the  Legislature  of  Indiana  Ter- 
ritory to  repeal  their  laws  forbidding  slavery,  because  the 
best  stock  of  Virginia  emigrants,  men  of  substance,  were 
going  beyond  Indiana  to  the  Missouri  territory,  where 
slaves  were  held  by  foreign  law.  This  can  be  seen  in  his- 
tories of  Indiana,  happening  before  Madison  made  him 
governor  of  that  territory.  One  of  his  letters  that  I  have 
is  full  of  careful  directions  for  getting  a  box  of  Bibles  sent 
by  river  from  Pittsburg  lower  down.  Under  his  reading 
of  them,  as  interpreted  by  the  theologians  of  his  day,  he 
believed  that  slavery  "is  the  unavoidable  destiny  of  this" 
negro  race.  He  thought  it  the  destiny  of  this  nation  to 
perpetuate  the  other  form  of  slavery.  Trenholm  professes 
to  think  it  our  destiny  to  perpetuate  the  form  of  slavery 
called  gold^  monometallism.  My  ancestor,  in  substance, 
told  Indiana:  "The  sooner  we  recognize  this  and  fix  it 
in  our  laws,  the  sooner  we  will  reap  the  fruits.'*  The  South 
did  so,  and  reaped  the  fruits.  We  have  recognized  slavery 
to  Rothschild  and  already  reaped  some  of  the  fruits  in 
the  starvation,  debauching  and  criminalizing  of  the  help- 
less and  in  surfeiting  the  beneficiaries  with  the  pride  that 
goeth  before  destruction  and  filling  them  with  the  haughty 
("public  be  damned")  spirit  that  goeth  before  a  fall. 


256  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


CHAPTER  XII. 
THE  CURE. 

We  ought  to  learn  a  lesson  from  the  destruction  of  the 
other  form  of  slavery  not  to  tamper  longer  with  gold-basis 
fiatism's  slavery.  John  Brown  tried  to  put  the  negroes 
to  killing  their  masters.  Stripped  of  formality,  what  else 
did  Grant  and  Sherman  succeed  in  doing  but  killing  them 
on  a  larger  scale?  Those  who  say  that  the  wiping  out  of 
issue  banks  is  too  radical  should  see  that  this  form  of  slav- 
ery, if  not  now  abolished  by  ballots,  will  later 
be  abolished,  as  the  other  was,  by  bullets.  The 
plan  now  most  forward  of  remonetizing  silver  at  i6  to  i 
and  leaving  paper,  too,  is  like  the  plan  of  reforming  a 
drunkard  by  compelling  him  to  drink  a  great  deal  of  water 
and  allowing  him  to  drink  also  all  the  whisky  he  wants. 
The  plan  of  the  "free  coinage  of  the  American  product'* 
proposed  by  some  republicans  with  the  purpose  of  buying 
the  vote  of  mining  states  for  that  party,  is  contrary  to  the 
principles  of  the  science  of  money.  It  interferes  with  nat- 
ural rights.  As  the  gHDvernment  has  always  taken  out  ten 
per  cent  of  the  pure  metal  and  put  alloy  in  its  place,  thus 
making  the  owner  of  the  bullion  pay  for  the  cost  of  coin- 
ing, the  words  "free  coinage"  are  ill-chosen. 

If  we  were  to  leave  gold-basis  soft-money  fiatism  the 
field  there  would  be  a  show  of  prosperity  for  a  few  years 
and  then  another  collapse.  The  big  fish  and  the  shrewd 
fish-hawks  would  eat  the  little  fish.  And  so  it  would  be 
done  over  and  over  a^ain  till  dynamite  and  the  torch  play 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  257 

tlieir  role.  This  would  not  be  in  my  day.  "After  me  the 
deluge"  v/ill  come.  But  it  need  not  come  if  we  use  our 
reason  and  hold  back  the  now  unbridled  greed  with  the 
reins  of  justice  from  trampling  on  natural  rights.  The 
evil  must  be  dug  up  by  the  roots.  It  almost  makes  one  be- 
lieve in  a  malignant  agency  over  us  when  we  see  that  after 
Washington  had  by  his  sword  brought  this  republic  into 
existence,  he  by  his  pen  made  its  ruin  possible,  and  set  on 
foot  the  plan  that  has  brought  it  so  near  destruction  and 
that  will  inevitably  make  it  a  monarchy  unless  speedily 
and  radically  reversed.  That  great  warrior  was  not  an 
economist.  Before  we  had  a  coinage  law  he  had  signed 
tViP  Ki'll  f^t-  *t--  c— -  ja — * — ^' 


_  _.  ^  wv^^v-iiov.  ui  uiusc  WHO  Dorrow  it 

should  be  put  away,  quickly.  Our  real  trouble  will  come 
from  the  fact  that  whenever  we  remonetize  silver  at  15J  to 
I  every  silver  dollar  and  certificate  will  go  to  a  premium. 
It  will  take  careful  management  to  get  through  with  the 
adjustment  with  the  least  shock  to  business.  Old  slavery 
systems  are  hard  to  get  rid  of  without  some  shock.  The 
present  position  of  the  West  and  South,  that  of  restoring 
constitutional  coinage  at  th^  ratio  of  16  to  i.  and  saying 


256  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


CHAPTER  XII. 
THE  CURE. 

We  ought  to  learn  a  lesson  from  the  destruction  of  the 
other  form  of  slavery  not  to  tamper  longer  with  gold-basis 
fiatism's  slavery.  John  Brown  tried  to  put  the  negroes 
to  killing  their  masters.  Stripped  of  formality,  what  else 
did  Grant  and  Sherman  succeed  in  doine  but  killiner  them 


JO  joog  aq;  uo  ;u8raa:^B!js  snoaaoua  ara^s  aq:^  ap'Boi  Q\^^  puts  lunq 
->[OTj[g  sja:^'BU8g  '\tb\]%  qui  s\p%  ssaiSuo^  jo  laqraaoi-xa  uy  Jiow^s 
9i\1  JO  !jsoD  aq;  SI  oSjmp  ^uira  A|uo  aqj^       osfB^sira  'B  si  siqx 


per  cent  of  the  pure  metal  and  put  alloy  in  its  place,  thus 
making  the  owner  of  the  bullion  pay  for  the  cost  of  coin- 
ing, the  words  "free  coinage"  are  ill-chosen. 

If  we  were  to  leave  gold-basis  soft-money  fiatism  the 
field  there  would  be  a  show  of  prosperity  for  a  few  years 
and  then  another  collapse.  The  big  fish  and  the  shrewd 
fish-hawks  would  eat  the  little  fish.  And  so  it  would  be 
done  over  and  over  again  till  dynamite  and  the  torch  play 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  257 

their  role.  This  would  not  be  in  my  day.  "After  me  the 
deluge"  will  come.  But  it  need  not  come  if  we  use  our 
reason  and  hold  back  the  now  unbridled  greed  with  the 
reins  of  justice  from  trampling  on  natural  rights.  The 
evil  must  be  dug  up  by  the  roots.  It  almost  makes  one  be- 
lieve in  a  malignant  agency  over  us  when  we  see  that  after 
Washington  had  by  his  sword  brought  this  republic  into 
existence,  he  by  his  pen  made  its  ruin  possible,  and  set  on 
foot  the  plan  that  has  brought  it  so  near  destruction  and 
that  will  inevitably  make  it  a  monarchy  unless  speedily 
and  radically  reversed.  That  great  warrior  was  not  an 
economist.  Before  we  had  a  coinage  law  he  had  signed 
the  bill  for  the  first  Bank  of  the  United  States.  That  was 
the  egg  out  of  which  the  "monster"  came  that  is  trying  to 
make  the  republic  a  monarchy  as  Hamilton  wanted  to 
make  it  then.  The  only  cure  is  an  amendment  to  the  con- 
stitution that  will  forever  keep  paper  currency  out  and 
shield  men  in  their  natural  right  to  the  use  of  gold  and 
silver  at  the  true,  natural  ratio  of  i  to  15^  unlimited  except 
by  nature^s  generosity  and  man's  ability,  and  forever  for- 
bid Federal  banks.  Many  will  look  with  alarm  on  the 
proposal  to  get  the  paper  out  of  the  way  and  will  say  that 
we  must  not  reduce  the  volume  of  circulating  medium  too 
fast.  "Money"  that  has  to  be  subsidized,  so  to  speak,  to 
get  it  to  be  "money,"  can  hardly  be  retired  too  fast. 
"Money"  made  at  the  expense  of  those  who  borrow  it 
should  be  put  away,  quickly.  Our  real  trouble  will  come 
from  the  fact  that  whenever  we  remonetize  silver  at  15J  to 
I  every  silver  dollar  and  certificate  will  go  to  a  premium. 
It  will  take  careful  management  to  get  through  with  the 
adjustment  with  the  least  shock  to  business.  Old  slavery 
systems  are  hard  to  get  rid  of  without  some  shock.  The 
present  position  of  the  West  and  South,  that  of  restoring 
constitutional  coinage  at  th^  ratio  of  16  to  i.  and  saying 


258  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

nothing  about  national  banks,  if  put  in  practice  would  in 
the  end  furnish  gold-basis  fiatism  the  best  argument  it 
has  ever  had.  The  ratio  is  not  the  true  one.  It  under- 
values silver.  Silver  will  not  stay  here  at  that  ratio  any 
more  now  than  it  would  before.  Paper  drives  out  coin. 
National  bank  notes  will  drive  out  the  silver  dollars.  There 
is  not  room  for  both,  and  before  the  silver  goes  it 
will  be  in  the  way.  If  deposited  in  the  Treasury  and  certi- 
ficates taken  for  it  the  time  will  come  again  when  a  Presi- 
dent will  steal  in  under  a  platform  of  false  pretenses  and 
make  them  gold  obligations  again.  That  is  a  good  ob- 
jection to  any  obligation  used  as  the  medium  of  exchange. 
If  the  Populists  could  get  their  kind  of  currency  it  would 
forever  be  a  bait,  a  banter  to  the  gold-fiatists  to  get  hold 
of  the  administration  and  change  it  into  gold  obligations. 
Just  as  it  would  have  been  better  for  the  constitutional 
party  to  refuse  the  Allison  compromise  for  Bland's  original 
bill  and  work  for  their  rights  and  take  nothing  less,  so  it 
would  be  better  now  to  take  nothing  less  than  an  amend- 
ment to  the  constitution,  making  gold  and  silver  at  15^ 
to  I  the  sole  medium  of  exchange.  If  Rome  was  to  live 
Carthage  had  to  be  destroyed.  If  coin  is  to  stay  paper 
must  go.  If  we  are  to  have  both  metals  we  must  have  the 
true  ratio. 

All  coined  gold  and  silver  must  be  taken  by  the  federal 
government  for  dues  to  it,  as  was  originally  intended  by 
the  constitution;  and  perhaps  coined  into  American  coin 
before  paying  out.  This  will  help  us  to  take  from  gold- 
fiat  nations  their  idol,  gold.  It  will  put  them  on  the 
anxious  seat  as  they  were  before  they  got  their  agent  made 
President  of  the  United  States. 

"Who  is  to  apply  this,  the  only  cure?"  Gouge  said  in  his 
day.  "For  the  salvation  of  the  country  we  must  look 
to  the  farmers  and  mechanics.  The  mercantile  classes  are 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  259 

SO  entangled  in  the  meshes  of  the  banks  that  they  cannot 
yield  much  assistance."  Except  as  to  some  country  mer- 
chants the  same  is  true  to-day.  There  must  be  a  begin- 
ning made  by  tlie  pick-and-shovel  brigade;  the  mechanics 
and  farmers  and  all  who  work  and  do  not  wish  to  steal 
under  forms  of  law  must  unite. 

It  will  be  said  the  principles  of  the  science  of  money  are 
too  intricate  for  plain  people  to  understand.  But  working 
men  will  very  quickly  learn  the  difference  between  being 
at  the  front  as  they  are  under  the  natural  system,  and 
trodden  under  foot  by  all  the  rest  as  they  are  under  all 
fiat  systems;  like  cattle  in  a  stock  car,  who  once  get  down 
and  are  thenceforth  trodden  under  foot  of  all  the  others  and, 
not  allowed  to  get  up.  A  return  to  the  use  of  hard  money 
only  will  shield  them  from  such  treatment. 

Laborers  and  mechanics  see  no  reason  why  they  should 
vote  for  the  loan  of  the  public  credit  on  large  land  holdings 
or  on  warehouse  receipts,  but  they  quickly  see  where  they 
would  all  gain  if  every  dollar  must  have  the  stamp  of  the 
pick  and  shovel  on  it.  Three-fourths  of  the  money  metals 
being  used  for  other  than  money  purposes  we  must,  in 
order  to  get  $500,000,000  of  coin  to  replace  the  paper, 
mine  at  least  two  billions  of  metal.  Workingmen  know 
what  that  would  mean. 

We  have  the  most  powerful  tool  or  weapon  ever  used; 
better  than  armies,  stronger  than  ironclads;  swifter  in 
action  than  vigilance  committees  with  ropes.  It  is  the 
ballot.  'We  have  the  necessary  number  to  stop  these 
crimes.  But  we  have  been  divided,  and  the  enemies  of  the 
human  race  have  so  far  won.  Truly  in  our  case  can  it  be 
said,  "My  people  is  destroyed  for  lack  of  knowledge." 
When  the  Israelites  for  centuries  had  squabbled  over  two 
laws  and  had  wobbled  from  one  religion  to  another  there 
arose  at  last  a  man  who  wiped  away  laws  and  sacrifices. 


260  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

fasts,  feasts,  bulls,  birds,  goats,  clean  and  unclean,  by  one 
sentence:  *'Be  just  and  love  mercy."  It  is  not  likely  that 
a  man  ever  lived  long  enough  to  read  the  financial  ''plans," 
the  laws  and  sacrifices,  the  bulls  and  goats  of  Mammon's 
worshippers,  and  of  their  dupes  and  victims.  And  not  one 
of  them  is  worth  reading.  The  remedy  is  as  simple  as  that 
of  the  prophets  in  religion ;  yea,  it  is  the  same  as  his — it  is 
justice.  We  need  only  to  throw  aside  the  elaborate  in- 
ventions of  schemers — their  paper  currency  schemes,  and 
be  just  to  the  miner  with  his  pick  and  shovel.  We  have 
only  not  to  take  away  from  him  what  Nature  gave  him. 
The  benefits  will  come  equally  to  all  other  callings.  Who 
fights  the  battles  of  every  country  with  arms?  It  is  the 
workingmen.  They  must  fight  this  battle  for  it  is  theirs. 
The  Christian  religion  began  among  the  lowliest.  Rome 
was  founded  by  runaway  slaves. 

Whilst  scholars,  editors  and  financiers  were  scheming 
and  writing  whole  libraries  on  the  question  of  ''How  to 
Resume  Specie  Payments,"  and  Congress  industriously 
drank  whisky  and  played  poker  in  search  of  the  solution 
of  the  problem,  men  in  the  fields,  forges  and  mines  were 
working  out  its  solution.  From  the  workingmen  and  the 
farmer  must  come  the  solution  of  this  more  important 
problem. 

Many  plans  for  direct  legislation  by  the  people,  plans  of 
adapting  the  Swiss  systems  to  this  republic  are  proposed. 
What  we  need  is  a  continual  narrowing  of  the  field  of  action 
of  the  dishonest,  purchasable  public  servants  of  all  kinds. 
That  is,  a  leaving  of  the  citizen  to  his  natural  rights.  There 
is  for  us  but  one  way  to  do  this,  and  that  is  by  constitutional 
amendments.  When  the  Supreme  Court  rendered 
its  silly,  dishonest,  political  decision  in  the  case  of 
the  old  United  States  Bank,  and  the  people  up- 
set it  by   the   re-election   of  Jackson,  they   ought  to 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY  261 

have  clamped  it  with  an  amendment  to  the  con- 
stitution forbidding  federal  banks.  The  cure  for  the 
evils  that  we  now  suffer  must  begin  with  such  an  amend- 
ment, and  forbidding  any  banks  of  issue  and  any  issue  of 
paper  currency  from  any  source  whatsoever.  We  will 
thereby  cut  off  some  of  the  unearned  gains  of  a  class,  but 
we  will  keep  an  oppressed  and  desperate  class  from  cutting 
off  the  heads  of  men  in  the  former  class. 

Our  influence  may  gradually  extend  to  the  whole 
world  by  our  financial  action,  just  as  it  has  by  our  political 
action.  This  republic  made  France  a  repubHc.  It  made 
all  the  country  south  of  us  republican.  It  is  forcing  liberal 
ideas  and  an  extension  of  suffrage  on  Europe,  Asia,  Africa 
and  Australia.  If  we  could  enforce  all  natural  rights 
everywhere  we  could  make  the  lives  of  Armenians  in 
Turkey  insurable  against  England's  effort  to  make  them 
uninsurable. 

The  effort  of  Trenholm,  Wells,  Bayard,  Cleveland,  At- 
kinson, Norman,  MacLeod  and  the  whole  lot  is  to  stop 
the  growth  of  the  demand  for  natural  rights  in  all  respects 
by  stopping  the  demand  for  natural  rights  in  respect  to 
monf  y:  by  putting  Lord  Liverpool,  Bismarck  and  Cleve- 
land in  the  place  of  Jefferson,  Jackson  and  Benton  as  the 
counsellors  to  whom  we  look. 

The  two  salient  points  in  Trenholm's  gold-fiat  fort  are 
that  London  is  the  clearing-house  of  the  world  and  En- 
gland its  foremost  commercial  nation,  that  we  are  hope- 
lessly inferior  and  must  do  as  England  requires.  That 
there  must  be  a  standard  of  value,  that  it  is  gold,  which 
became  so  by  a  natural  process,  and  is  not  the  result  of  the 
scheming  of  any  clique.  Cleveland,  Wells,  Bayard,  Sher- 
man, all  the  greedy,  the  Tories,  the  traitors,  unite  on  that. 

The  American  people  make  a  poor  soil  in  which  to  sow 
the  teaching  of  everlasting  commercial  inferiority  to  En- 


262  THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

gland.  But  for  our  Civil  War  it  is  likely  that  we  would 
now  fully  equal  them  in  the  carrying  trade.  When  we 
were  gaining  gold  steadily  under  the  awkward  Bland- 
Allison  Act,  which  we  did  until  Harrison  turned  the  tide 
by  stopping  coinage,  England  saw  ruin  ahead.  I  know 
personally  that  the  alarm  was  so  general  in  England  at 
our  gathering  gold  that  even  bank  tellers  could  not  keep 
from  protesting  against  it  to  Americans  traveling. 
Something  had  to  be  done  and  it  was  done.  England  is 
not  the  strong  financial  country  of  the  world.  Her  stock 
of  metal  compared  to  the  credit  based  on  it  makes  her 
position  a  perilous  one  always,  and  France  was  able  to  save 
her  from  ruin  because  she  is  saturated  with  coin  as  no  gold 
monometallist  country  ever  can  be.  Furthermore,  the 
vastly  better  general  condition  of  the  French  than  the 
English  people  makes  the  financial  condition  of  France  far 
more  solid  than  that  of  England.  And  that  comes  from 
her  use  of  both  metals  (latterly  shortened).  French 
finance  is  based  on  the  idea  of  solidarity.  English  (which 
is  Jewish)  on  that  of  the  few  grab  from  the  many.  En- 
gland's advantage  is  in  lying  between  Europe  and  Amer- 
ica (as  well  as  in  keeping  aloof  from  continental  wars,  as 
she  has  done  since  the  Crimean,  in  which  she  got  other 
nations  to  fight  her  battle.)  Our  position  is  better  in  both 
respects  than  hers.  We  lie  between  Asia  and  Europe, 
and  Europe  and  Australasia.  All  that  is  needed  to  make 
us  go  at  once  to  the  head  of  all  commercial  nations  is: 
First,  Laws  that  would  restore  our  merchant  marine; 
Second,  Ceasing  to  leave  our  transcontinental  highways  in 
the  hands  of  modern  "Robber  Barons,"  who  charge  "what 
the  traffic  will  bear."  The  existence  among  us  of  such  men 
as  Harrison,  who  for  place  will  do  the  will  of  the  American 
partner  of  our  British  enemy,  and  of  Tories  like  Cleve- 
land and  Trenholm,  who  do  the  same,  in  lowering  the  value 


THE  FINANCIAL  PHILOSOPHY.  263 

of  our  commodities  by  demonetizing  silver  at  the  behest 
of  England  is  the  basis  and  beginning  of  our  ills.  For  true 
Americans  Cleveland  and  Trenholm  are  the  best  of  all  the 
Tory  party.  They  tell  us  plainly  what  others  mince.  Our 
task  is  a  second  freeing  of  ourselves  from  British  rule. 

One  of  the  oldest  scarecrows  of  the  gold-fiatists  is  that 
the  bankers  who  get  the  public  credit  gratis  and  lend  it  to 
those  to  whom  it  belongs  are  so  afraid  that  they  will  not 
get  back  gold  for  it  that  they  throw  the  country  iijto  a  panic 
or  keep  business  men  pinched.  This  is  a  good  reason  for 
going  back  to  the  use  of  silver  and  gold  as  the  only  medium 
of  exchange.  The  men  who  get  these  out  of  the  ground 
can  never  afford  to  hold  them.  They  put  them  into  circu- 
lation at  once  and  they  keep  going.  The  bankers  can 
afford  to  hold  the  notes  that  cost  them  nothing,  and  thereby 
bring  other  men  to  their  terms.  Never  on  earth  could  it 
be  said  with  greater  appropriateness  than  with  respect  to 
the  paper  currency  system,  "Cut  it  down,  why  cumbereth 
it  the  ground." 

Adam  Smith  says  the  mint  and  the  postoffice  are 
properly  private  enterprises.  As  to  the  mint  this  may  be 
seriously  questioned.  In  my  pamphlet  "How  to  Abolish 
the  National  Bank  System,"  I  said  that  we  ought  to  have 
laws  that  would  coax  gold  away  from  foreign  nations. 
One  of  these  ought  to  be  to  recognize  the  fact  that  the 
money  of  a  country  is  in  a  way  public  property.  Nicholas 
Oresme,  adviser  of  Charles  the  Wise  of  France,  the  French 
bishop,  who  wrote  the  first  great  modern  treatise  on 
money,  says  that  the  money  in  circulation  belongs  to  the 
community.  Public  property  ought  not  to  be  taxed.  If 
the  part  of  the  gold  and  silver  that  is  coined  were  not  taxed 
and  what  is  in  other  use  were  taxed  it  would  be  a  strong  in- 
fluence in  favor  of  keeping  them  in  the  form  of  money,  and 


^64  THE  FiNAKCiAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

thus  keeping  up  a  sufficient  supply  for  the  use  of  the  com- 
munity. 

If  any  one  will  take  the  value  of  the  whole  industrial 
product  of  this  nation  in  figures  and  double  it  he  will  see 
what  we  would  gain  by  fixing  our  circulating  medium 
firmly  among  us.  If  he  will  set  against  that  the  compara- 
tively trifling  sum  that  we  collect  as  the  tax  on  money  and 
obligations  to  pay  money  he  will  see  how  greatly  the  gain 
on  one  hand  will  surpass  the  loss  on  the  other.  It  is  use- 
less to  give  Congress  the  power  to  provide  a  uniform  cir- 
culating medium  and  the  county  authorities  power  to 
drive  it  out  by  taxation.  No  coin  with  the  nation's  stamp 
on  it  ought  in  any  way  to  be  shorn  of  its  strength  to  do  its 
work. 

We  saw  this  principle  plainly  enough  when  greenbacks 
were  made  untaxable,  but  are  strangely  blind  in  failing 
to  see  what  Nicholas  Oresme  saw  half  a  thousand  years 
ago — ^that  the  coined  money  of  the  country  belongs  to  the 
community,  is  in  a  way  public  property.  To  get  the  re- 
sults wished  we  must  live  up  to  the  principles  of  the  finan- 
cial philosophy. 


APPENDIX, 


In  the  Forum,  November,  1895,  Stbyan  Vatralsky,  writ- 
ing of  Stomboloff,  late  premier  of  Bulgaria,  says:  "In  the 
spring  of  1876,  the  insurrection  of  Bosnia  and  Herzego- 
vina broke  out,  and  the  'apostle'  (of  liberty,  a  society  of 
patriots)  made  a  desperate  effort  to  raise  a  like  one  in  Bul- 
garia, the  partial  success  of  which  ended  in  the  notorious 
Turkish  atrocities.  Yet  this  terrible  failure  proved  a  suc- 
cess in  disguise ;  the  long-cherished  purpose  of  the  patri- 
ots was  attained.  The  massacre,  filling  the  whole  civilized 
world  with  horror  and  indignation  against  the  Turk — 'the 
anti-human  specimen  of  humanity' — led  finally  to  the 
Russo-Turkish  war  (1877-8),  which  ended  in  the  libera- 
tion of  at  least  the  most  important  part  of  Bulgaria.  And 
had  it  not  been  for  the  interference  of  England,  under 
Beaconsfield,  every  inch  of  our  Fatherland  would  to-day 
have  been  independent,  and  there  would  have  been  no 
'Macedonian  Question.' " 

This  powerful  proof  of  the  truth  of  my  charge  that  the 
Jews,  by  their  money  and  influence,  are  forcing  England 
to  hold  Russia  off  so  that  the  Turks  can  exterminate  the 
Christians  and  Aryans,  came  under  my  eye  after  the 
plates  of  my  book  were  ready.  The  Jews  forced  Bismarck 
to  put  Germany  with  England  and  against  Russia; 
against  the  freedom  of  Ar>'an  Christians  and  for  their 
slavery  or  death.  It  is  well  known  that  there  is  a  con- 
siderable party  in  England  beHeving  that  the  English  are 
the  "Ten  Lost  Tribes  of  Israel,"  and  it  is  said  that  the  half- 


ii      .  APPENDIX. 

crazy  old  -  woman  who  rules  England  thinks  herself  a 
descendant  of  David.  The  history  of  the  Jews  is  yet  to 
be  written.  But  it  is  a  weighty  fact  that  the  vice  so  preva- 
lent among  the  English  of  England  to-day  (the  dregs  of 
the  many  races  that  have  overrun  her),  is  a  part  and  par- 
cel of  the  Turkish  nature,  and  among  the  Jews  it  was 
once  a  religious  practice;  and  beyond  any  question  the 
peculiar  rite  of  the  latter  is  a  reminiscence  of  that  time  and 
was  originally  meant  to  facilitate  the  practice.  Against 
this  loathsomeness  Babylon  offered  the  worship  of  Istar 
or  Venus. 

Plucky  little  Japan  proved  blustering  China  a  mere 
shell.    A  firm  grasp  will  prove  England  another  shell. 


^f^/ss 


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AYERS 

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